"She completely amazes me" . . .

June 20, 1963

Dear Dad and Mom, Tom and Grandma,

Well, I've done it again.  Father's Day has come and gone and I still have the card I bought.  Wonder if I'll ever change?  Probably not and I'm sure it would be too much of a shock for you folks if I ever got a card sent on time.  I think I may have got either Jim's birthday card or their anniversary card sent on time.  Don't know for sure how long it takes for a letter to get there.

Goodness I didn't know I had written three letters to you in a week.  Guess I'll have to quit that.  Ha!  Ha!  I just answered the letters you wrote me.

Your courses at summer school sound hard, but the teacher's sound interesting so that helps.  (Sorry about that apostrophe in the teachers.  I'll have to be real careful how I write to you with you in a comp course.) [This was a typed letter, so not so easy to just cross out the errant apostrophe.  MJS]

Is this advanced comp of some kind?  And how come another speech course?  Wasn't the other one enough or have they changed everything around?  Say, while I'm thinking about college courses -- does it cost a dollar to have a transcript sent?

We all had colds over the weekend.  Sure is a heck of a time of the year to have colds.  We're all pretty much done with sneezing and blowing noses.  You never heard so many sneezes as there were around here on Saturday and Sunday.  And to make matters even worse it was so hot over the weekend.  Yesterday it cooled off quite a bit and today seems to be starting out fairly cool.

I got a beautiful birthday card from Bill the same day we got your letter.  I was so mad because he owed us a letter and didn't write a word with the card.  But today I got a letter from him.  He said he had been working at the NCO Club at night as a waiter, so I suppose that keeps him pretty busy.  I guess I'll send Aunt Helen's letter on to him.  I'm sure he'll enjoy reading it.  I sure like it when you send letters from relatives on to me.

By Beverly Davis Hansen do you mean my old teacher?  It certainly is sad.  Carol Topp wrote to me and said that they thought Mrs. Lloyd Schneider might be all right, now.  She had been to Rochester for several operations and they thought they had all of the cancer out.

Did Betty Ann have the baby at home or did she at least make it to the hospital?  Needless to say I like the name Gary Richard.  You hadn't even told me that they were expecting.  Shame on you.

It really amazes me the way Mary likes to be read to.  I keep going on about it in all of the letters I write, but like I say, she completely amazes me.  Her favorite book is one about Woody Woodpecker.  Sometimes she sits on the davenport and "reads" to herself.  She sits there and jabbers and giggles and shakes her head.  The other day she as looking at a magazine.  She saw a picture of some cereal with bananas in it and she was trying to pick up the bananas.  She got so mad and squealed.  What a nut!

I think our bathtub is lower than yours.  Anyway Mary just hops in and out like it were nothing.

Yes, Gary wears a white shirt every day.  A clean white shirt every day.  Except Saturday and Sunday when he doesn't work.

Who are the Dedrickson's that you are going to share the garden with next year?

Say do you suppose you could call Daisy Janke some day?  I recently got a new copy of the towns that have Family Record Plan Studios.  There is a studio in Norfolk that takes pictures for them now.  Maybe Daisy knows it already, I don't know. The name of the studio is Christian Photo, 117 S. 4th.

Dale really likes Sunday School.  He goes around all week singing the songs they sing in Sunday School.  Sometimes the tunes are a little weird, but at least he is trying.  They sing a lot of the same songs that we sang in Winside.  Dale's favorite are Jesus Loves Me and Fishers of Men.

Well, it is real nice and windy and fairly cool so I think I will get some blankets and other bedding washed up.

Hope you had a happy Father's Day, Dad.

Gary got a new necktie and a minnow dipper.

Love, Gary, Greta, Dale and Mary

The photo is from earlier than June of 1963, but I think I look completely amazing here, so I'm using it.

Switching gears . . . to 1963

Whilst looking in Grandma's trunk for something wholly unrelated, Mom discovered some letters she had written home to Nebraska from, so far as I've ready, Texas and California.  I think they are a bit of a hoot since she talks about Dale and I quite a bit.  Not everyone has timely reporting on their childhood antics.

So, I will leave Grandma be for a bit and do one of these letters per post until I run out.  I think there are a dozen or so.  Off we go . . .

February 15, 1963

Dear Mom, Dad, Grandma, and Tom,

Well yesterday was a lovely day for us -- got letters from you, Bill, and the Bowders.  And it was nice weather-wise, too.  We had snow on Monday.  It was a wet snow and so pretty.  There was snow on the ground until Wednesday noon.  Dale had a grand time playing in the snow until somebody threw a snowball at him.  Then he had had enough.

Glad to hear Geserich said something to Kant about her dirty floors.  Hope she remembers it.  Have you ever asked Geserich if he has a sister named Carol married to a fellow by the name of Neil Edmonds?  Don't know why I think I have to know.  Just curious I guess.

Oh, this Mary.  I think she deliberately torments Dale.  She takes things away from him and then laughs when he hollers.  The two of them are really having a battle right now.

We got a cuckoo clock from Bill, too.  He had written that he was getting a clock for you and one for Nancy and Jim.  I told Gary that if he didn't send us one too I would skin him alive.  I really like it.  Every time it cuckoos Mary's eyes got so big and then she laughs.  Dale thinks we have a pretty smart clock that can say cuckoo like that.  It comes in real handy when I'm putting him down for a nap.  I put him down at about one and tell him that when the clock cuckoos two times he can get up.  Well he lays there real still and listens for it and of course goes to sleep.

I'll bet Dennis Morris is happy about Bob's having a baby.  I remember Sophie saying he wanted to have a nephew or niece here.

I sure do like my pressure cooker.  I haven't cooked any rice in it yet but have used it for a couple of batches of beans.

I made some whole wheat bread last week.  Gosh, what a mess.  It just didn't behave like white bread.  I don't know what I did wrong, but it tasted good anyway.  Was awfully crumbly though.

We used the money from Aunt Nan for several tings.  We bought new plastic and a heavy stapler and recovered the kitchen chairs.  Then Gary made a cupboard in that space above the refrigerator.  (When Dale saw the cupboard he said, "Oh my, that's wonderful.")  We also bought a rubber mat to put in the bathtub.  The rest of the money I'm going to use for such things as a double boiler, rolling pin, flour sifter, etc. as long as the money lasts.

Aunt Addie sent Mary some money for her birthday.  We used it to buy her some new shoes.  The shoes have bells on them.  Dale really thought the bells were something.  The first couple of days he would go up to her and shake her to hear the bells.  Then the morning when it was snowing he grabbed her shoes (she didn't have them on) and went around here shaking the shoes and singing "Jingle Bells."

Gary has just 39 days left in the Army.  It doesn't seem possible that there is so little time left here in Killeen.  It really will be nice to get back to San Antonio.  Gary is going to take a few more days of leave in March shortly before he gets out to go to San Antonio and get a job settled.  When he was down before the didn't get to talk to anyone about the electricians union.  But did find out that he might be able to get into the carpenters' union as an apprentice.  He also looked into a job at Sears.  But nothing is settled by a long ways.

I guess that is all for now.

P.S.  I thought Grandma might enjoy the clipping; Dale started to cut it up.

Not sure what to add here.  I don't know who Geserich is.  Also didn't know that we ever went back to San Antonio after leaving there shortly after I was born.  I guess I never asked, or maybe it didn't happen that way after all.

The photo is obviously before February 1963 but it was the best I could do at the moment.  If ever I needed to quickly lay hands on the Infamous Sucker Fight photos, this is it.  Hopefully I can find them soon.

No eating out

"October 13, 1994:  Cloudy and dampish.  TOPS met in evening.
October 14, 1994:  Pinochle at Ida F.'s.
October 15 and 16, 1994:  Put the border on Greta's Storm at Sea quilt.
October 17, 1994:  Arlene R. and Lois K. put quilt in frame.  Lois, Arlene R., Lila and I quilted in p.m."

No slam against the TOPS ladies, but this is I believe one of very few, if not the only mention of a meeting that didn't include going out to eat.  Of course, since Grandma didn't journal each and every day, maybe ordinary meetings didn't rise to the level of being recorded.  I think I'll go with that.  I remember that when Grandma was first with TOPS and doing quite well, she told us she went to bed early one night so she wouldn't be tempted to eat any cookies.  That made me smile then and still does.  And that was back when Nancy lived down by Plymouth -- it's been awhile.

I've been somewhat distracted with the election coverage today and nearly forgot about this little blog here.  But I didn't forget entirely.

Speaking of Nancy and Plymouth, I had to drag out this decidedly humorous photo.  I want to say this was when she and Jim lived outside Laurel, but it is closer in time to them living in Plymouth than anything else I can come up with.  For some reason I am really liking Grandpa's glasses.  And his arms look the color I most remember them.

Details count

"August 3, 1993:  Carol T. and Greta here in late p.m.  Nancy and I to Norfolk after that.  Got some .080 line for the weed eater for Howard.
August 4, 1993:  Nancy to Hartington and Laurel in p.m. -- stayed all night in Laurel with Karen Young.
August 5, 1993:  Nancy back in a.m.  We visited Johanna and Sophia in p.m."

I am guessing Grandma was so precise with putting down the type of line for the weed eater so that she would have it down and at the ready for the next time.  That is what I would do anyway and of course, great minds think alike.

I do not know who Sophia is, I don't think.

For anyone reading who is not Mom or Nancy, Karen is the person that the goat Paul pushed in to the trunk when she was getting stuff out after a trip.  Paul, as I remember him, was a real piece of work.  Nancy readily admits that she and whoever else was around did nothing to help Karen other than laugh at her for her trouble.  I can believe that since Nancy and Mom came out after hearing me scream/shriek/beg for my life when Paul was standing on my back.  Now, I managed to overcome it all and turn into a relatively well-adjusted person, but to laugh at a helpless five-year-old being stood upon by a goat . . . oh, okay, I probably would have done the same thing.  How I do wish I had a photo of Paul.

Since I do not have a photo of Paul, here instead is a photo of Jim and Dale and I with two burros.  Looks like I have a brush in my hand so I must have been "helping".  I must say I have my best "model posing with animals" pose going on there.  The camera loved me.

April Fools' Day

"March 30, 1992:  Quilted at church.
March 31, 1992:  Finished the quilt at church by 2:00.  Lois K., Bertha and Arlene P. came and helped me quilt for the rest of the afternoon. 
April 1, 1992:  Howard didn't fool me today."

Boy would I like to know if Grandpa tried anything on April Fools' Day and what it was. 

March 31 is confusing to me.  I am sure it makes sense if you know what went on but I am not getting how you finish and then keep going for the rest of the afternoon.  I love that Grandma noted what time the quilting was done.

I probably would have saved the photos from yesterday and used them today if I had read ahead.  They seem to fit today's post better.  But instead I have this priceless photo from 1972.  Other than wondering who took it, I have no comment.  Well, okay . . . I am totally liking Dale's cuffed shorts and red(?) socks.