Letters from 1945
The largest group of letters Edna saved are from the first half of 1945. She was in a sanitarium at Ancker (now Regions) Hospital in St. Paul, having contracted tuberculosis from a patient during her nurse's training there. (Antibiotics were not yet used against TB, and she would be confined, on a regimen of bed rest and supportive care, for nearly a year, until December 1945.) Thora, who was enrolled in the same War Department-funded nurses' training program as Edna, traveled that spring to a Navy hospital in Seattle. (It's because of the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, Edna says, that they were able to afford nurse's training.) Alex Martin, whom Edna had married in May 1944, was on the West Coast, in transit from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center to the Pacific Theater of World War II. At this time Grandma is 63, Grandpa is 65, Edna is 23, Alex is 24 and Thora is 27. Brothers Richard and Gilbert Paulsen are ages 35 and 29, respectively.Jan. 29, 1945: In the only letter in this collection from Grandpa Paulsen, he writes to Edna from Oakland, Calif., where he is sharing a room with his brother Andrew and Grandma Paulsen's brother Ted and working at a shipyard. He was uncharacteristically effusive:
"My dear daughter Edna, I am going to write you a few lines and tell you how sincerely sorry I am that you must be confined to your bed and how happy I am that you will soon be all right again. Smil and tak lok [smile and ??] the good girl you are and all ways was and all ways will be. I got a letter from Thora last night. Tell her I will soon answer it. But for me to answer it likr [??] tonight would be too quick and look too much like a business correspondence. Tell her many hellos from me and say that I was happy to hear from her. You are both of you 2 of the best 5 girls in the world. Well no. 6 counting Ma, but she is in a category by her self. The weather here is some times nice, some times wet and much of the time cooler. I don’t much like it. I have a great longing in my heart to get back home and see Ma and you all. Your old Pa with much love. [P.S.] Alex came to see me but did not catch me in the room. PVP"
Feb. 19, 1945: There's been a cold snap, with wind from the southeast and 34 below the previous morning. Donny, who is 15, is staying with Grandma, as he does much of the time over the next several months. He reports that his mother, Mame (Marie), said Frances had hurt her wrist. The Gilbert Paulsens (minus Duane) pay a surprise visit to Grandma -- the first, she says, since her birthday in August. Betty, who is 14 months old, "used to smile anytime you looked at her," but is now "a real little sober face. She won't crack a smile for anything." Also mentioned: Richard, Thora, Jens Paulsen (Grandpa's brother).
Feb. 21, 1945: Donny was at the hospital in Frederic to get a cast off his arm and hand, which he still can't use. (There's no clue how he was injured.) The next day, Feb. 22, is Clara's birthday as well as George Washington's, and Grandma plans to celebrate by washing clothes. (Edna believes she was using a gas-powered ringer washer that was later converted to electrical by Lillian's husband, Ephraim Miller. She had to pump water outside and heat it on the stove, though sometimes Richard was able to haul hot water from the creamery for her to use. Clothes were line dried, outside or inside as the weather dictated.) Also mentioned: Thora, Grandpa, Alex's brother George (a buddy of Donny's), neighbors Agnes and Eddy Ditlefsen and Richard and Gilbert, who were raising turkeys together.
Feb. 23, 1945: Grandma corrects herself about Donny's injured hand: It is not the ring finger but the index finger (slikkeput in Danish) that is still bandaged. She reports receiving letters from Grandpa, Thora and Marian (Ditelfsen, later Marian Eklof), Agnes and Eddy's daughter. Grandma has put off washing because she's still getting over a cough and wants to stay out of the snow. Thora, who is still at Ancker, thought she might be home for a visit but didn't make it. Despite his injured hand, Donny writes to Edna -- a jokey, lighthearted letter in which he reports that Grandma fell flat in the deep snow on her way to tend the chickens.
Feb. 26, 1945: Grandma thanks Edna for sending a schedule of radio programs from the Twin Cities newspaper. The Gust Petersons came for supper and Donny went home with them, but 14-year-old Jerry stayed with Grandma. Richard had to walk home because the car wouldn't start and because the road by his place is filled, presumably with snow. (The place where he farmed with Gilbert was near the corner of today's 170th Street and 300th Avenue.) Old 35/160th Street was passable only as far as far as Moon's Corner -- the corner of 160th Street and 300th Avenue. (It was named for Moon Williams, who lived on the southeast corner of that intersection.) Also mentioned: The Millers, Thora, Frances, and Mrs. Dversdahl, whose Frederic beauty parlor was damaged by fire.
Feb. 28, 1945: Grandma envies the help Edna has gotten from a classmate named Elaine to wash her hair. "I'll have to scratch mine the best I can," she says. She apparently had injured her arm, but thinks it's healed enough to tackle the task. (Her hair was extremely long; Edna doesn't remember her ever cutting it.) There's been a lot of back and forth via telephone between Grandma and Mame over when and how Jerry is going to go home to West Sweden. Mame wants him to walk to town and ride home with her and he wants her (or Gust) to drive out to Grandma's to pick him up, but Gust has vetoed that idea. Old Grandpa -- P.V. Paulsen's father, Christ -- has received a letter from his son Andrew, who apparently is in the Twin Cities. (Earlier in the war he worked with P.V. and Ted Skow in the Oakland shipyard.) In other news, Richard has taken the bull to the stockyard in South St. Paul, where he received $245.96 the animal, which weighed just shy of a ton.
March 5, 1945: March has come in like a lion with snow and cold. Grandma has had a visit from her siblings Karl and Ella, who live on the Skow home place with their bachelor brother John. They share a photo they've received of brother Martin Skow's three boys. Grandma, Richard and Donny paid a visit to the E.T. Miller's, where they enjoyed a steak dinner. Also mentioned: Clara, Gilbert's girls, Thora, Grandpa. (Charles, whose family is staying with Clara and Millard, was Millard's older son.)
March 7. 1945: The weather remains "snappy ... just stinging cold." Donny is back and Grandma's and wants to go along on a planned trip to St. Paul to visit Edna. Grandma apologizes for inadvertently using a sheet of letter paper on which she had listed, on the other side, the 34 people who had attended a silver wedding anniversary party for Eddy and Agnes Ditlefsen two nights before. (Years later, Lillian, Thora and Edna would jot down similar lists of attendees after Paulsen family reunions.) Enclosed in the same envelop is a lighthearted letter from Donny to Edna.
March 9, 1945: Grandma has had letters from Grandpa, who plans to quit working at the shipyard April 7 and head home soon after; P.V.'s brother Andrew, who has been undergoing some kind of medical evaluation at a Twin Cities hospital; and her brother Albert, who is really busy. She reports on a Ladies Aid meeting at the Ditlefsens where Rev. Anderson, the pastor of St. Peter's Lutheran, angrily denounces a suggestion that the group donate money to the Red Cross. "Hope he cools down," Grandma writes. "I was afraid he would explode."
March 14, 1945: Grandma reports their safe return from a trip to St. Paul the day before to see Edna at the sanitarium. Richard drove, and Donny, Ella, Lillian and 3-year-old Nancy went along. Grandma was worn out by the trip but Donny had the energy to attend a high school basketball game at Luck with neighbor kids. Edna used the back of the envelop to jot down the names of pop songs, perhaps the top 10 on the Hit Parade.
March 15, 1945: Grandma reports that they forgot to bring home Edna's war bonds. (She was receiving them via a program connected with Alex's Navy pay and presumably wanted them put in the bank.) Grandma says she felt "pretty punk" the day before with pain in her legs, back and joints. She blames it on the fact that she had to get out of the car at the Skow place after the St. Paul trip and wait in the "strong, cold, raw wind" while Ella dug around for a package. The weather has been cold and very rainy, and Grandma is irate that the bus driver insisted Donny and a neighbor girl walk down to the Wallingfords (at the T where 280th Avenue meets 160th Street). "They must have got soaked to the skin this morning."
March 17, 1945: There's more chitchat about their recent visit at Ancker (the Bobby mentioned is Robert Huber, Mrs. Nees' son) and news from P.V.'s sister Anna: She and her husband, Otto Clausen, hadn't heard from their son, Fulton (a.k.a. Howie), for eight weeks, and finally learned, via Cable-gram, that he is in the hospital. She doesn't specify the reason, but says his unit, the third Marine Division, has been on Iwo Jima. (Fighting there lasted from February 19 to March 26, 1945.) Otto, meanwhile, is ill with erysipelas, a skin infection. The weather has been wild, with 24 hours of heavy rain followed by snow and high winds."Suppose it is all in the making of spring."
March 20, 1945: A brief note reports swell weather. Grandma is feeling OK, but "I can't stand to work as much as I did 20-30 years ago." Like many of the other letters, this one is in an envelop with a "For Crippled Children" stamp on the back. This was from the National Society for Crippled Children's 1945 fundraising campaign. (The organization is now called Easter Seals.)
March 21, 1945: The snow is gone, the weather is nice, and Grandma has been cleaning. Richard and Gilbert are building a brooder house for their turkeys. She hasn't heard if the dress Edna sent home with them fits Betty, but she's sure it will. Donny, whose hand is now healed and functional, has been at Grandma's for nine weeks and doesn't seem eager to go home to Mame and Gust. Grandma thinks it's too bad that Thora has to leave (for a Naval hospital on the West Coast) and wonders if the best student nurses were chosen to travel. Edna jots on the top of the first page, "I wish to goodness sakes that I could get moved in with Akre," a recuperating classmate.
March 23, 1945: Grandma was surprised the night before by the late arrival of Bobby Huber and Thora, who is still in bed as Grandma writes ("The sleepy ...").
March 24, 1945: Grandma assures Edna that Alex will write soon and that a recent X-ray shows her recovery is on track. She wonders if Lillian should sew her some pajamas. Thora brought home her ration book, but it is "gutted for next month too." It's a "grumsy, cloudy day" in rural Frederic.
March 26, 1945: Thora has been catching up on her sleep (still in bed at 9:30 a.m.!), but needs to get to work on the clothes she brought home that need mending. The Millers, the Petersons, Richard, Karl and Ella visited the day before.
March 27, 1945: Richard has taken Thora to the dentist in Luck (Dr. Funne, Tom Funne's dad), and Grandma thinks his teeth need attention too. She has been working away at the mending Thora brought home but isn't confident she's up to the task and wishes Thora had taken her coat to a professional for repairs. Mame has been to the Joe Martin place in West Sweden hoping to get some print feed sacks for sewing purposes, but it turns out Mrs. A.W. Martin (Joe and Alex's mother) has been using them to make clothing for Joe's wife, Dorothy, and their kids.
(This period photos shows a variety of ready-to-sew feed sacks from the 1940s.)
March 29, 1945: Thora has left for the Twin Cities, clothes mended and ready for duty. "We think she looks good in her [cadet nurse's] uniform [but] she says she does not like it." Grandma frets that unseasonably warm weather that has coaxed out the apple blossoms, lilac buds and rhubarb is sure to be followed by freezing cold with damaging consequences.
March 31, 1945: Grandma remarks on how much sleeping Thora did while she was home. "I don't begrudge her the rest, but I don't know if she got all her clothes fixed the way she wanted them." Four-year-old Nancy Miller is hoping for a letter from Edna, and had asked Thora to take her along to see Edna. Donny has gone home to West Sweden after 10 weeks at Grandma's. "Roy Jorgensen is being deferred [from the draft] by Marius Peterson again this year," she writes, suggesting that she thinks there's favoritism at work.
April 2, 1945: The day before was Easter Sunday, and Grandma is glad that Edna received flowers "and things." (There were plants from Reynolds and Sands, the women in charge of the cadet nursing program.) There was no big holiday celebration at Grandma's. She pulled together a noon meal on short notice for Richard, her brother Hans Skow (1884-1947) stopped by in the afternoon, and she and Richard paid a visit to Karl and Ella Skow in the evening. She has been listening to war news from London and the Pacific on the radio. She's eager for mail from Clara and Thora and anxious to know that Edna has heard from Alex.
April 4, 1945: It has snowed all night, and the wind is really blowing. The blizzard has prompted school closings all around (Donny waited half an hour for the bus before giving up), and Grandma is worried that it may keep the mailman from his appointed rounds. The Ladies Aid meeting has been postponed.The day before she went to Luck with the Ditlefsens to vote.
April 5, 1945: The snow is up to your knees and schools are still closed all around, but the mailman made it the day before, bringing a letter from Edna with the welcome news that she had heard from "her man" (Alex). The roads are not yet plowed, and Richard's car went into the ditch the night before. Grandma expects the milkman will help him pull it out when he comes around. Grandma is getting 32 cent a dozen for her eggs at the store and 35 or 36 cents for the best ones at the Produce. Also mentioned: Donny, Grandpa.
April 6, 1945: Schools are open again. Grandma has received letters from Thora (presumably from the Naval hospital in Seattle), and she was stricken by an intestinal bug. Anna has written that Fulton is recuperating from his war wound but has a piece of shrapnel in his leg. Grandma worries about how the lilacs will come through the cold weather but thinks the strawberry fields will be fine. She wonders if the cineraria Edna received for Easter will be thrown out when it stops blooming. Also mentioned: Donny, Grandpa, Otto Clausen, Richard and Gilbert.
Cineraria plants
April 9, 1945: The weather is once again nice and Grandma is once again suspicious that it's too warm too early. Thora has written from Seattle about garments she wants Grandma to send her. Jerry and Donny have purchased a gun for $10 from a Frederic man. Grandma missed Agnes' birthday party the day before (Richard and the Petersons were at her place), but plans to attend a going-away party that evening for the Wallingfords, Eleven-year-old Frances had a swell Easter dress, but was "pouty or owly" because she wanted to go to the show (movie) even though she'd been there earlier in the week.
April 10, 1945: There was quite a turnout for the Wallingfords, and they received more than $18 in cash gifts. Donny went to a basketball game in Luck the night before with Harvey Ditelefsen and plans to go that evening to dancing school in Frederic with Moon Williams' kids. His hand wasn't healed enough to milk cows the last time he was home in West Sweden, so Jerry had to milk the five cows while Donny did other chores. Grandma has finally received a missing letter from Thora; "It was missent to Rhinelander, the dopes."
April 11, 1945: Grandma remarks on how busy Mame is and expresses the hope that she can quit her job at the Produce and "take to stay home." Grandma has packaged up the clothing Thora wants sent to her -- raincoat, 2 pairs shoes, 2 handbags, 2 skirts, black wool dress, brown jersey jacket -- and plans to insure it. She is shocked at how much sugar Old Grandpa (P.V.'s father, Kristen Paulsen, 1851-1945) consumes. He lives in a cottage on P.V. and Karen's property, and a week before she had brought him a quart jar of sugar and 2 quarts of (corn?) syrup. "He has eaten the sugar already, just sits and eats it by the spoonful. Now he can go at the syrup." She has inquired about getting red (meat, butter and cheese) ration stamps for him, but it would require a lot of paperwork and perhaps a doctor's visit, "so we just let that slide along." Also mentioned: Nancy, Donny. Clara.
April 12, 1945: Judging from a letter received the day before, Grandpa should be well on his way home from California. Old Grandpa is "slipping some," she reports. (He will die that summer.). Richard didn't get home until 10:30 the night before and was up and out early this morning as he and Gilbert ready two brooder houses for turkeys that are to be delivered that day. "The war news [is] all going good." (Allied troops are driving toward Berlin, and the Americans liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp on April 10.) "Hope they get it all done pretty quick."
April 13, 1945: Grandma didn't have the radio on the day before and so didn't learn until evening that President Roosevelt had died, "a shock to the whole world." The news coverage is wall to wall: "It is all for Roosevelt on the radio last night and today." She caught two little lizards in the basement and asked Donny to take them to the woods, but he took them instead to the Ditlefsens, where Carol Ditlefsen shot them with her .22. "Such kids." The day before, Richard and Gilbert received their turkey poults, which are so dumb that Richard says they need to be taught to eat and drink by dipping their beaks in water and mash. "Old Grandpa is getting more forgetful all the time, ja slut [that's it]." She offers Edna encouragement in her convalescence: "You are doing so swell. ... Just smear on some patience everything will come out O.K."
April 14, 1945: Grandma goes on at some length about the vagaries of mail delivery in wartime. In other news, she has about 1,200 tomato sets growing in the house, but those she seeded in the east end of the hen house aren't up yet because of the cold. Two or three of the turkey poults were dead on arrival, and two or three more have succumbed since. (She thinks they cost 83 cents each -- just under $11 in today's money.) She hears on the radio that "It is such a lovely day in Washington, D.C.," where President Roosevelt's funeral is underway. "Bye bye. I'll behave myself and you do the same."
April 17, 1945; Grandpa is home at last, having arrived "on the flier" (passenger train) after a whirlwind visit in the Twin Cities, where he saw Edna, his brother Andrew, and his sister and brother-in-law Anna and Otto Clausen. Grandpa's shipyard work has paid off: They have counted up their money, "and some nice day soon we are going to Balsam Lake to pay off the federal [mortgage] loan. Yep." Grandma laments the cold, inclement weather and adds a Danish phrase, "De skal vist nok ikke hardt nok," that means something like "Enough is enough." She is sorry to learn that Edna's classmate Helen isn't doing well. (Helen, who was infected at the same time as Edna, died of TB.) On a lighter note, Thora has written from Washington State that she went horseback riding "and was sore in her behinder." Also mentioned: Richard, Dorothy and Carol Ditlefsen, Doris Bille, Nancy, Donny, George Martin, Doris Martin.
April 18, 1945: Winter is back, with snow and bitter cold, and Grandma has covered her bleeding heart sand tulips in hopes they will survive. The Millers came by with the motor for Grandma's washing machine, which went haywire the last time she used it and now must be plugged and unplugged to turn it on and off. Her "good, big" hog got butchered the day before. "I am going to can some and salt some and make head cheese, lard, etc." There's been no meat in the stores, but between the eggs and the occasional chicken and fish, "we sure don't suffer any." Also mentioned: Grandpa, Nancy.
April 19, 1945: It has warmed up a bit, and Grandpa is out in the strawberry patch, hoeing and covering the plants with straw. "Now he wants to keep on till done, so ... he won't start the car till next week. That is his way of being, start something and it has to get done." Fourteen-year-old Jerry has "gotten some outfit" with which to mount and stuff birds. Also mentioned: Donny, Aunt Anna, Shirley Clausen.
April 20, 1945: The weather turned summer-like but then froze again. Grandpa is more than halfway done cultivating the strawberries and they look swell, with no dead hills. "What if we get a bumper crop." Donny has been helping Grandma process the pork (she fried pork chops and sealed them in lard; there will be sausage, too). He says he's ready to go back to West Sweden. "He's been here a good long time, and Jerry wants him home." Eddy and Agnes' 24-year-old son, Kenneth Ditlefsen, is stationed in Hawaii, and Grandma wonders if his until will join the fight in the Philippines. She ends the letter with a sketch and comments, "I used to could draw something like a cat, but what is this."
April 21, 1945: Donny has gone home. "I miss the kid. I almost wish he was my kid, ja ha, Edna's brother." She has rendered by put by six coffee cans of lard, with more to do. Grandma got a letter from Thora and spoke on the phone with Lillian. Nancy got a letter from Edna, and the Millers received 350 chickens. Donny bought Grandma cards for Carol Ditlefsen, Einar Skow and Ina Skow, who are to be confirmed.
: xxx
April 24, 1945: Kenneth Ditelfsen is now on a destroyer. "Pa was telling me about what those things look like. He has sure been building on a great ship this winter." Thora has reported that her classmate Elaine doesn't care for her assignment at a state mental hospital in Fergus Falls, Minn.: "There are about 2,000 demented people in the bug house. It must be a jittery place for sane people to be." The meeting of 46 nations that leads to the formation of the United Nations is about to begin in San Franciso, and "they are talking from all over the world on the radio this last hour, 9 to 10 [p.m.]." Also mentioned: Mrs. A.W. Martin (who is helping Dorothy Martin with her growing family), Marion Ditlefsen (who has gained 18 pounds), Donny (whom Grandma misses).
April 27, 1945: Grandma enjoyed Ladies Aid at Pilgrim and likes the pastor there better than Rev. Anderson at St. Peter's. She's been invited to Ladies Aid the following Tuesday at the German Lutheran church in Frederic (Immanuel), where Mrs. Daeffler (mother or Edna's best friend, Doris) will entertain. The Pilgrim ladies get reimbursed in sugar and ration-book points when they entertain (provide the lunch). Speaking of which, she enumerates changes that have been announced in the rationing program. (Rationing began in the United States in May 1942 and continued into 1946.)
April 28, 1945: It's finally warming up a bit, with no frost the night before. Grandma was expecting Donny after school, and when he didn't come she called Mame at the Produce. It turns out he went home from school with an earache, and Grandma is sure it's because he had been going around without a cap or hat in the chilly weather. "We heard some time ago that M.B. [Marcella Boe Smith, who married Richard later this year] was getting a divorce." Meanwhile, Paulsens (Gilbert and Richard) sold two cows for $500. Pretty good I say."
May 1, 1945: It's still chilly, with ice on the water out by the pump that morning. (The have electricity, but indoor plumbing is still some years off.) Thora has written from Seattle, reporting that the naval hospital where she's stationed "is really the place to be if you have a good appetite" and that she hopes to save $20 a month from her pay. Grandma walked down to the Ditlefsens to get eggs to put under three hens (to incubate). It's been announced that sugar can now be purchased with ration stamp 36, but it has to last four months.
May 2, 1945: It's still chilly, and there's rain mixed with snow, but Grandpa has finished planting strawberries and is shelling sweet corn for planting. In the midst of the gardening report she remarks, "Did you hear the story about Hitler, believe it or not." (He killed himself on April 30.) Edna must have reported that Thora's friend Elaine has come back to Ancker (presumably for a visit), and Grandma wonders how much of the 200 miles from Fergus Falls she had to walk. "Is it not kind of daring to to start on a long walk like that. I suppose they had rides about all the way." Meanwhile, "There seems to be a shortage of sugar in the land but then we can stand it. Some people are beefing plenty about it, but just so the war gets done, that is the main thing."
May 3, 1945 (The letter is misdated April 3; it's in an envelope postmarked May 3): The weather remains unseasonably cold. "Nothing can grow yet, just keep alive, but then that is something." Grandma is still fit to be tied about the stinginess displayed by the St. Peter's Lutheran Ladies Aid: "I was to the Hitlerite Ladies Aid meet yesterday and got so mad and still am. I was not to the meet at H. Billes' but it was decided there that at the next meet they were to vote for once and for all if or not they will give to the cancer drive, the Red Cross, the March of Dimes and I thought there was one more. But anyway they voted and the vote was 9 for and 16 against. So Hitler won. And I am not going to give one penny to the good Ladies Aid ever again. Ja, Anna Peterson got up and talked against the cancer drive yesterday. [Edna says she was a big shotl at St. Peter's who was known as "Holy Anna."] Guess she was in kahoots with the minister."
May 4, 1945: It remains chilly. Grandpa has transplanted tomatoes and built a frame so that they can be covered at night and, if necessary, in the day. Grandma is sending Edna a box of cookies plus a little sucker from Paul Smith, Marcella's son, who was visiting the Ditelfsens with his Grandma Boe when Grandma stopped there. She's had a card from Mame, who wrote that "the boys were not supposed to have gone down here Sunday. Guess they had their own plans." Deer must have been more scarce in the area than they are today, because Grandma takes time to remark that she saw three of them in H.H. Bille's alfalfa field.
May 5, 1945: The war is winding down: "Denmark is liberated. The Danes are wild with joy, the radio said." And in the neighborhood, "Pete Mattews came home Thursday from overseas." Grandma finally got to the laundry. The previous time she went to collect Old Grandpa's laundry "he gave me a clean shirt and undershirt. I took it and brought it back a couple days later." This time he had changed clothes, but the dirty laundry he gave her "is almost impossible to get clean. It could make a spicy soup." The weather is half nice, and Grandpa has transplanted 1,800 tomato sets. Grandma encloses a letter she received from a friend, Miss Josephine W. Burkland, 924 Sherman, Salinas, Kansas. It's written in pencil in a small, cramped hand, and Grandma wonders if Edna can decipher it for her. (When she mentioned it in a previous letter, Grandma suggested that Edna could rewrite it for her, but now she says that's not necessary.) Much of the letter is illegible, but it appears that Josephine is in poor health -- she's had flu and pneumonia and seems to have trouble walking -- and that she doesn't care at all for the violent plains weather. "I think Kansas is the most trying state in the U.S." (A Google search locates a grave in Saline County, Kansas, for Josephine W. Burkland, 1881-1954. That would make her the same age as Grandma, so perhaps it's the same woman.)
May 7, 1945: "After a couple of nice days it is cold like Iceland again. Ja, so it goes." Joe and Dorothy Martin, Alex's brother and sister in law, have a new baby, and there's another one due soon in the Gilbert and Jeanette Paulsen family. "The [Paulsen] kids are kind of wild, some of them. Gary is quite sensible but Duane has to be taken in hand now and then. Janice is a little tomboy. Betty is cute sweet thing." Also mentioned: the Carl Boes, Marcella (who is divorcing Jack Smith), Richard, Mame and Gust (whose getting fatter), the Millers (whose phone doesn't seem to be working). As Grandma writes, she hears on the radio that Germany has surrendered unconditionally and the war in Europe is over.
May 8, 1945: There's nonstop news coverage of V.E. Day, and Grandma had to turn off the radio. "O my, ja, hope they soon get it all over [in the Pacific] and I think they will. It has been going pretty good ever since Alex got in to help." Spring remains elusive. "This is some desperate weather. Such a wind and hard freeze last night. There was thick ice on some water out on the porch." Grandma is going to curtail her letter writing and bake cookies to send to Alex: filled oatmeal (his lifelong favorite) peanut butter and a new variety called Butter Krisps. Grandpa thinks they should be able to get canning sugar with one of Edna's ration stamps. "If you think it OK then send me spare stamp 13 and if we get the sugar we can do canning for you for next winter."
May 9, 1945: "It froze good and plenty last night. ... Maybe the worst is over for this spring." Grandpa has transplanted 1,700-1,800 tomato plants and a lot of peppers, but isn't planting carrots this year; "too much work to them." Grandma is still angry that the pastor prevailed upon the St. Peter's Ladies Aid not to make charitable donations. She went with Agnes Ditlefsen (who could drive; Grandma couldn't) to the German Lutheran Ladies Aid the previous day, and learned that they give to the Red Cross. What's more, Agnes wrote to her soldier-son Kenneth about the kerfuffle and he wrote back that she should "tell Rev. Anderson he is all wet [be]cause he [Kenneth] had a lot from the Red Cross, etc." There is going to be a [baby?] shower that afternoon for "Mrs. Rev. Anderson. I am not going to that." Grandma reports that Agnes' daughter Dorothy is unsure whether to look for a job because she hopes that her fellow (and future husband) Buddy will be home from the war any day. "Well some of them will come but lots will be sent right to the Pacific, so I understand."
May 11, 1945: The weather remains unseasonable, with a few flakes of snow the day before yesterday but no frost the previous night. Grandma's brother Ted Skow, who was working in the Oakland shipyard with Grandpa (and perhaps still is), has sent her an envelop with 14 picture postcards from Solvang, a town in Santa Barbara County, Calif., that was founded as a Danish colony. Grandma hears that a point system will be used to determine which servicemen are mustered out first. Richard thinks that his cousin Leonard Skow will have enough points to get home soon, and Grandma thinks that Alex's buddy (and Doris Daeffler's boyfriend) Harvey Berquist surely will, as he has been in the service for four years. She reports, via Richard, that Gilbert and Jeanette were flabbergasted that their new kitchen cabinets cost nearly $300.
May 12, 1945: Grandma was surprised to learn that Rudolph Peterson (Gust's brother?) had gotten married, with a chivary at the Joe Larsons a few nights before. "He got four children in the deal, ages 4 to 14 years old." Grandma and Grandpa are making plans to visit Edna at Ancker with a stop at Mrs. Nee's. The next day will be Mother's Day. Grandma has received an extra letter from Thora in observance, and expects the Miller and Peterson families will pay her a visit. "I have not heard how soon the new Paulsen is expected but it can't be very long by what I see." Grandma has received Edna's sugar stamp but seems nervous about using it: "If they ask any questions I can tell them I am canning for you for your housekeeping." Also mentioned: Donny.
May 14, 1945: Grandma reports on her Mother's Day celebration and many gifts, including a dress from Edna and "her man" that "was not quite big enough. Lillian took it along home again to take back to Mrs. Windus [Nellie Windus, who has a dress shop in Frederic]." Grandma and Grandpa went to church, and in the afternoon the Millers and Petersons did visit. "We talked around some, and the kids were out trying to drown a gopher." (Then, of course, there was "lunch," with sandwiches, cookies, cake and ice cream.) Donny had washed Grandma's windows and put up her screens, and Sunday night he and Jerry were going rollerskating. "Mame said Frances was not going. She had got stubborn yesterday. She did not get up till noon." Curtis and Morris, however, went to Sunday School.
May 15, 1945: The weather is finally improving. "We should have some rain and warm weather, then things will pop." Dorothy Ditlefsen went ahead an got a job. Listening to Agnes' side of a telephone conversation (the Ditlefsens, lacking their own phone, used the Paulsens'), Grandma gleaned that it's at the airport. Richard is burning the candle at both ends as he and Gilbert get their fields ready for planting. "Last night, 10:20, I was out and heard a tractor going up north here. I says, I wonder if that is Richard ... and I went to bed. A little while later Rich came. He had been plowing till then." She encloses an anniversary card Donny spotted in town and thought they should get for Edna to send to Alex. (Their first wedding anniversary will be May 20.)
May 16, 1945: "No frost last night hereabouts but the wind is so dang cold yet it is no fun. Pa is roaring for to get to plant squash and muskmelon and I expect he will pretty quick." Grandma asks if she can give Mame a tan summer coat of Edna's so Mame can make it over for Frances. Plans are in place for Grandma and Grandpa to visit Edna the following Sunday. (Grandma had hoped to come sooner "but then I set the hens [on fertilized eggs to hatch] and could not well be away.") "I thought we could have had two [other family members] along but Pa is so worried about getting flat tires he is going to take tires along inside the car."
No comments:
Post a Comment