Letters from 1942
May 7, 1942: After a post-high school year at home, Edna has gone to South St. Paul, at Doris Martin's suggestion, in hopes of finding work at the Swift Premium pork processing plant. Thora is in the Twin Cities, too, doing housework for a well-off family. Grandpa is cultivating his raspberry field, and Rationing has begun: "I canned 8 pints strawberry jam Monday and made some cookies. The sugar is gone now so we have to trot along with our stamp books."
May 11, 1942: The day before was Mother's Day, and Grandma reports on the many greetings and gifts she received. Her visitors included the Lillian and E.T. Miller family. "Roger had picked a big bunch of violets. [Five-month-old] Nancy weighs 17 pounds. She is all smiles." Clara has sent a newsy letter from Cortez, Fla., with updates on her husband, Millard Brown, and his fishing business and on Millard's son Billy, who lives with them and is nearing the end of high school. In Frederic, the school year is nearly over. "Jerry has passed to 7th grade. He was fooling mostly about his dumbness. Donny, Frances and Morris passed, so did LeRoy." Edna has picked up some kind of work while she waits to get on at Swift, and Grandma tells her she's not alone in having to get up early: "Tante Meta [Skow] has to get up at 5 o'clock and make breakfast and smear lunch, for [her son] Alvin has to work 6 o'clock at the milk plant." Also mentioned: Thora, Mame, George Martin (Alex's brother, a pal of Donny's), Doris Daeffler (Edna's best friend), Harvey Berquist (Doris' boyfriend, who is in the service),
May 13, 1942: Edna is still doing housework and waiting for the call from Swift. Gilbert's 3-year-old son, Gary, "hit the hay" at Grandma's the night before. "He had wanted to for so long, Rich[ard] said." Grandma has learned on the radio that the sugar allotment is five pounds per person, not five pounds per family, as some had thought. There will be "mission meetings" the coming weekend at St. Peter's Lutheran, which Pastor J.M. Girtz will leave at the end of May. (St. Peter's shared him with Luck Lutheran.) Also mentioned: Thora, Donny, Lillian, Alex.
May 16/18, 1942: Edna has moved and is now renting a room from a Mrs. Linstrom ("Has Mrs. Linstrom a Mr. Linstrom?" Grandma wonders). She has started at Swift. It must be a late shift, because Grandma comments that "You can almost have another job for forenoons." There was another hard frost the night before. "The peonies hung their heads to the ground" and the cabbage sets Grandma planted the previous day are no doubt frozen. "There is a yellow cat down by the barn. All the hens are admiring it. Or should I go see if it is a leopard or wildcat pup."
May 20, 1942: Grandma shares news about various grandchildren: Mame's boys have been fishing with Gust; Morris squeezed a finger in the door and the nail is loose; 12-year-old Donny says he'll do the housework this summer so Mame can work at the cannery and they won't have to pick peas; Donny and Jerry have a big bed to sleep in and so do Gary and Duane; Nancy was baptized the previous Sunday; Grandma has agreed to take care of xx-year-old Duane so that Jeanette can go to the Cities with her sister Evelyn and their parents.
May 21, 1942: The sugar rationing is getting annoying: "They said on the radio now that we can get one pound of sugar for each four quarts (that is pretty sour) and we have to go to the rationing board and tell them how much canning we have on hand and how much we want to can, etc., etc. Baloney." Grandma and Agnes Ditlefsen went in together on a gift for a bridal shower (40 cents each for a water pitcher and six glasses; bride unspecified). Grandma is going with Jeanette that afternoon to the Millers to deliver a crib for Nancy to use.
May 25, 1942: Grandma wants Edna or Thora to shop in the Cities for a graduation gift for Billy, Clara's stepson, and mail it to him in Cortez, Fla. Edna has been home for a visit, and "your dainty things were left on your bed." (Grandma will mail them.) Grandpa has gotten their cow home from the Paulsens; unfortunately, they can't use half the milk it produces, but Grandma will save cream and make butter.
May 28, 1942: Grandma hopes to finish planting in her garden today: cucumbers, beans, black-eyed peas, tomato plants, celery and peppers. Grandpa is soon done working his strawberries. The rush to get crops planted continues: "Rich worked till 10 o'clock Tuesday night over by McIntosh." Also mentioned: Mame, Gust, Donny, Jerry.
June 3, 1942: Sultry summer weather has finally arrived. Grandma has her garden in, and Grandpa is planting musk melon, squash, pumpkin, soybeans, peas and potatoes in his truck garden. Richard plowed the ground for him and Gilbert disked it. Jerry is with his uncles Richard and Gilbert today. Grandma's sister, Ella, has had a letter from their brother Lauritz in Washington State. He has gotten a job at an airport or defense plant, his wife has found work for $3 a day (good wages if Edna's 35 cents an hour -- $2.80 a day -- is the measure), and his son Lauren and daughters are working in a cannery. (Lauritz apparently went by Laurence [1890-1966] in Walla Walla, Wash., where he is buried at Mountain View Cemetery along with his wife, Jessolin [1890-1975] and son Lauren [died 1980]). Also mentioned: Mame, Lillian, Agnes Ditlefsen.
June 6, 1942: Algie (Algy E.) Boe, Jeanette's brother, is getting married this day to Marion (Marianne). Grandma adds that this week's Frederic Star is full of wedding announcements (perhaps for couple who are about to be separated by the draft). The day before, "we sure got a pour down about 6 o'clock. Boy did it ever come down. Thunder, lightning and water there was." The storm left a lake in a field that had been plowed, harrowed and ready to plant, and Grandma says some of what they planted may have washed out. She reports on a teasing conversation she had with Ella, who is 39 and single, and keep house for her 44-year-old bachelor brother, Carl on the Skow homestead. Grandma says she encouraged Ella to apply for work at Swift and told he she could share a room with Edna. "It would be almost a joke if she should go and quit Carl. Maybe he could get married then. Hvad siger du tel det (What do you think.)" She expresses the hope that Anna and Otto Clausen, P.V.'s sister and brother-in-law, will drive up from the Cities for a visit before gas rationing begins. Also mentioned: Lillian, Jerry, Andrew Paulsen (P.V.'s brother, who is working for the railroad).
June 8, 1942: This letter covers a lot of topics -- bears menacing the Boes' pigs, a party for home-on-furlough Leonard Skow, the federal occupational questionnaire that 33-year-old Richard had to fill out for the draft -- but perhaps the most interesting is Grandma's account of a chivary, a stunt that friends pulled on newlyweds: "The chivarie gang was out last night ... They chivaried Marcella and Jack (Smith). Got $3. Then down to Algie. Ja, they would give a dance. Then over to McIntosh. He handed them $5. There was a string of cars coming from the west past here. We wondered what it could be. Then the racket started and we knew."
Aug. 8, 1942: xxx
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