![\"31_image01\"](\"http:\/\/radnorhistory.org\/archive\/articles\/ytmt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/31_image01-1.jpg\")
<\/a>Many times passers-by stopped to ask Mr. and Mrs. Russell B. Spencer, on whose property these trees stood, what they knew of their history. There was little to tell, except that they were apparently of great age, because of their obvious tremendous size and height. A few years ago, two representatives from the \u201cPhiladelphia Evening Bulletin\u201d stopped to take pictures of the trees and to ask their owner’s permission to list them in the \u201c250 Years Old Tree Club\u201d of the \u201cBulletin.\u201d This at least gave a date of sorts for the trees.<\/p>\nThe Spencers, proud of these magnificent old trees, whose wide spreading limbs gave shade not only to their yard, but to the Cowan playgrounds and Radnor Street road, had them examined from time to time by tree surgeons to prolong their lives. Wind storms came and went, apparently without doing them material damage. Even \u201cHurricane Hazel,\u201d as it cut its devastating swath through Wayne, last October, left the two trees little harmed.<\/p>\n
And then last Wednesday, as Mrs. Spencer stood at one of the windows of her home and noted the quietness of the scene along Radnor Street road \u2013 the school bus had just departed and Cowan Play Field was now empty of children \u2013 she heard a small crackling noise in one of the old oaks. With startling speed this noise grew into a great roar as the tree closest to the field crashed to the ground, sending up clouds of sawdust, almost smoke-like in their density.<\/p>\n
To Mrs. Spencer, her beloved old oak tree went down \u201cjust as if it were tired to death.\u201d It would seem as if in the wisdom of its great years it had bided its time until there were no children playing in their favorite shaded corner of the school field; there was no school bus standing under it, and until there was a lull in the almost constant stream of traffic along the road, usually made even heavier on a hot summer day by swimmers on their way to and from Martin’s Dam and Colonial Village swimming pools.<\/p>\n
From all sides neighbors rushed to the scene, worried by the thought of the devastation that the old tree might have wrought as it fell.<\/p>\n