In 1958 my mother got married and moved across the country. These are the letters written to her, mainly by her mother, between 1958 and 1960. Others in the series are in my del.icio.us file.
November 4th (Tuesday) 1958
Dearest Maryrose and Pete:
First of all let me say that it was so good to receive a few lines from you Pete. Thanks and please write again. We know that you are very busy but take a little time anyway, you we are so lonesome for our girl and our girl’s husband.
You’ll never know how queer it seems to have y our daughter so far away, knowing that she belongs to someone else more than to you, but of course we wouldn’t have wanted her to marry anyone else but you, because we really believe, as my Mother said, that you two were meant for each other, that God arranged it so. We realize more every day how thankful we are and should be that Mickey married such a good man. Oh yes, you will know, for you are to be proud and loving parents yourselves and the years do pass so very quickly.
Well, the pheasant (hunting) season is almost over.Believe me they really cleaned out the cocks.
Once in a while the fellows see one, but believe me, they are a real prize if you get one now. There were 12 killed that we nkow of on our place. My men got 9 and Father Donahoe’s nephew got 2 and our little dog King, caught a crippled bird alive. We gave that one to Eddie too.
A funny thing happened. Mrs. Sundstedt is very ill, she has anemia, almost pernicious. So Cal thought it would be nice if we would give them a pheasant, so I got one out of the freezer and Cal took it over and last Sunday evening we went over to see how she was getting along and they thanked us for a rabbit. The funny part of it is that Cal, or rather your Dad, shot only two rabbits and we ate both of them. How did the pheasant that Dad took over there turn into a rabbit? Mystery, eh?
Oh yes, no one can tell us that the Good Lord hasn’t his angels guarding our house. About three weeks ago the light in the kitchen started blinking, naturally I thought the bulb was almost done. Then on Sunday, three weeks ago, Dad went out to see how Harry and Erna were and the light in the kitchen went out, we had no water, not at the house and not in the milk house. Nothing in the kitchen would go, neither would the milk cooler. We had light in the living room and the television was on, the lights upstairs, but none in the music room. I looked all of the fuses over and couldn’t find a thing wrong. Course we were worried, Calvin and I. When Dad came home he couldn’t find anything either, but he changed some wiring at the barn so that the milk cooler would work. By that time it was quite dark. In the meantime whe he couldn’t find anything, he had called Conner Mars. It was 9 o’clock when eh got here, and the first thing he did was go to the meter, he touched it and said, “Here is the trouble, there is a short in the meter.” When eh took the meter off some sort of a plate that the meter was on I suppose was red hot. Dad said really red hot, a clamp of some sort that held the meter to the house was burned in two and it was supposed to be of a material that was fireproof. Boy were we scared, burning out once was plenty for us,(they had a house fire in the early 1930s) and Dad was quite nervous for a few days afterwards. I wonder if sometimes that isn’t the way a fire starts. We had received an OK from the insurance company on the wiring, just the year before but it wasn’t the wiring, it was the meter that was at fault. God is so good.
S’nuff about that. I guess Janet Sue is engaged to be married. The y ung man comes from a very fine family. We are happy for them.
My the weather here has been so nice here. Cold nights, but it warms up nicely during the day. The fellows have just about finished picking their corn , and you should see how much they have. It looks like a corn storage mill back of the barn. We surely are thankful for the abundance that the Good Lord saw to it we had.
Well Dad is all thru working for Stanley Carter. He got laid off a little over a week ago. Yes, there is an upturn in business. The shops are beginning to put on second and third shifts, but of course in Dad’s line of work, that won’t pick up for a while yet. He could go to work in Bay City but he doesn’t really much like to go away from home to work, and I don’t care for it either. He still has plenty to do right here at home.
Remember how Calvin use to hate to shock corn and then husk in the spring? Well, they won’t do it that way any more, cause Dad sold the husker. He fixed the corn picker, and it does a beautiful job of picking.
I suppose you have received the first dress by now. What did yu think of it? I am mailing out another one today, nope, it will have to be tomorrow. I got size 18 patterns, but gosh the skirt on this second dress had a 36 waist line, wow! Maybe it will be alright later on eh? I think if y ou sew up the tuck that I have pinned on, or even make them smaller or larger, the skirt will be fine later on. I thought the material was very pretty. It is bark-cloth, like that pink one you bought. It made up quite nicely I thought. Is your pattern anything like this one? I mean this two piece one?
If I can manage it, I am going to town this p.m. to get myself a dress. I’m really quite low. Maybe I’ll look at some of the yard goods that Mill End Stores are advertising; $1.19 a yard material for only 67 cents, maybe I’ll get you some too.
I have canned close to 50 quarts of pears. I am practically out of jars. They were beautiful this y ear, but so many of them have gone to waste, because they bruise when they fall, and then they rot so fast after that The y oung stock sure like them, , or hand some to the heifers and they think they reallyhaev something.
Well this is getting to be quite a letter, maybe it would be better if I should stop right now. Not often that I have time to or energy to write this much.
I’m terribly happy that Maryrose is coming home, we would be happier yet if Pete could manage to come too, but if the work won’t let him, we’ll patiently wait until next yera.
May god love you and keep His arm about you for always.
Lovingly, Mother
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