Our Robin is Read: Voices from the Wayside

By Ellen Gray Massey and Ruth Ellen Massey

Our Robin is Read: Voices from the Wayside is a compilation of letters, known as a "Round Robin," between Ellen and her seven siblings, starting in the early 1940s and continuing through the early 1970s. In fact, the children of all the Gray siblings and even their children are still carrying on the tradition to this day. There is a treasure trove of history between the pages of this book— letters written during World War II, the assassination of President Kennedy—as well as lots of funny stories, the weddings of Ellen and her sister, Carolyn, and the sadness that permeates as they correspond about the deaths of their parents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Walrus Publishing
• Release date: Aug 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781940442396

Book preview

SIBLINGS’ GOSSIP

July, 1944

Austin, Texas

Dear Siblings,

Here goes! Since I am the eldest in the family, it seems appropriate for me to begin. With Ellen and Carolyn, the last of Mama and Papa’s children to leave home (to attend the University of Missouri), several of us thought we should begin a sort of round robin to circulate to all eight of us so we can keep closer touch with one another. (This beats writing seven letters when we can write one letter to all.)

While Carolyn, Ellen and I were visiting Mama and Papa at The Wayside, Carolyn suggested I start the robin to set the procedure. I’ll send to Harold, he to Kathryn, Gertrude, and on chronologically through Ralph and Vernon to Ellen and Carolyn. Then Carolyn, being the youngest, will send than all back to me. Each person take out his own letter from the last round, keep it until further notice, then send the rest merrily on.

We talked this idea over with Mama and she didn’t give us much encouragement that it would succeed. She said one person could stop or delay it by not writing. Also, it could degenerate into personal remarks to one member which aren’t interesting to others. She says this from her experience with round robins in the Welch family.

So I would suggest we send letters on within three days, and limit personal comments to those of general interest; make them as brief and WITTY as possible.

I’ll begin with some college jokes my students tell. Carolyn, have you heard this at MU? Come down out of the rafter, Grandma, we know you are on the beam! Or did you hear what the mayonnaise said to the icebox? Keep the door closed, I’m dressing.

Miriam

Harold

July 20, 1944

Chicago, Illinois

Miriam is her usual efficient self. With her launching and regulations the robin should thrive. She sort of set the tone, too, with those corny jokes. I greet you from Chicago, the third city of the universe.

Kathryn

July 28, 1944

Terre Haute, Indiana

You all have had easy sailing reading the letters so far, but now you are really going to have to dig in and work—reading my charming long hand. Too bad we have no typewriter. Anyone want to send me one? I might put it on my Christmas list!

Dudley is in Peoria, Illinois, at the moment. Peoria is only 180 miles as the crow flies, but as he isn’t a crow, and hasn’t gas to drive, (gas rationing during World War II) he leaves here on the night sleeper to Chicago, takes a train out of Chi in the morning and arrives at Peoria around noon. Coming back is the same thing. With good luck he could hitch-hike it in less time.

Our dear children continue to grow and stay fairly healthy. They get meaner every day, or so it seems to their mother. I guess most children treat their parents like dirt. All the neighbors tell me what nice manners and what a sweet child Katie Gray is. Maybe they are talking about someone else; it couldn’t be the Katie Gray I know. Jimmie has mastered sentences and once he gets started, one sentence will continue an awful long time. He is a demonomical conversationalist, too. If you don’t listen to him he either screams it at you or knocks you down.

Ralph

August 2, 1944

Green Meadows, Maryland

I’ll confess that most of the delay of the robin was due to me. The reason was that it took me seven days to figure out all of Kathryn’s hieroglyphics. This time, in order to get this letter off under the wire, I skipped the words in Kathryn’s letter that I couldn’t read right off. So there’ll be no comebacks about my penmanship, I’m writing this on a typewriter I borrowed from a neighbor. Don’t you have neighbors, Kathryn? With typewriters?

Harold, city pride is all right, but you shouldn’t let it color your judgment. In your letter you mentioned Chicago as the third city of the universe. What about Osaka, Japan? According to the last census before Pearl Harbor, it was only a few thousand below Chicago and judging by the rate of increase of the two cities in the previous few years, Osaka is now two or three hundred thousand larger than Chicago. Of course, the B–29’s will probably soon change that.

Jean and I are still mulling over our disappointment at not being able to go to The Wayside this summer. I have about thirty days of annual leave and no place to go with gas rationing and all the local state parks closed. Judith and Mary Ellen are old enough now for us (and them) to really enjoy a visit to the farm.

Vernon

August 6, 1944

Cleveland, Ohio

Before we got married, both Dorothy and I had typewriters. We still have them despite all our moving. I am using Dorothy’s now, not because it’s better, you understand, but because the type is smaller. And, Kathryn, I herewith extend to you this offer: That if you wish, I will send my typewriter to you PDQ COD. No kidding, I will do this for you! It’s not so much because you’re one of my best sisters, but because I can’t read your damn writing. If you’d rather have it for Christmas, I will send it to you prepaid. It is a Remington typewriter, standard keyboard, knee action, free-wheeling, Model 1903. It’s in good mechanical condition for the shape it’s in. It will write, I swear it. Even if it didn’t when I bought it, by all that’s holy, I swear it will now, so help me God. It has nice light blue ribbon, easily read, very large type, and light wooden key levers, like a piano. The only very inconsiderable inconvenience is the fact that it writes on the very exact bottom of the roller, and you can’t see the writing until you tip the roller back out of the way. But the design provides for this (knee action). It tips back the easiest you ever saw! This hidden view feature is very appealing to beginners. Their morale stays much higher. At least until they finish a sentence. Then after a person gets proficient and a few mistakes no longer bother him, it’s easily possible to insert a system of mirrors to reflect the written image back to the operator, I think. I’m sure Dudley can improvise a small detail like that. I almost had it once, and it proved a big help. Of course, the image was upside down, but it’s easy to get used to that. After a while.

Our moving to Cleveland was an object lesson to anyone contemplating such a thing in war time. We had two great assets, however. I had just received four new tires from the company and also a large supply of gasoline stamps. In all the maneuvering we did getting here we used up all of the gas and then some. In the first place Dorothy and I thought that we could get most of our stuff in the car for the trip down. We figured that having no furniture it would not be hard to move. Don’t anyone figure that way again! With furniture, you have to get a van or box-car to transport it, and you just stuff it full of all your junk. We started out with two small cardboard boxes. We soon decided that we couldn’t send them by Railway Express, as they would split open. I went out for several hours looking for large wooden boxes, and everyone laughed at me. If you own a large wooden box KEEP IT. You can’t get any. Well, anyway we got packed finally, filled up the car so much we couldn’t see out the back, and had to leave a green hassock there! When we got to Cleveland we had to stay in a tourist cabin for ten days and drive to work with all that stuff in the car. Then we couldn’t find anything furnished, so we had to rent an upper flat and furnish it. We got a fairly good stove but an electric refrigerator is impossible. We picked up an eight dollar icebox that uses about 100 pounds of ice a day it seems like. We are fixed up fine now, except that Dorothy didn’t like the dirt on the living room set that was delivered and had it sent back. For ten days we’ve been sitting on the floor. We ran low on money and couldn’t get a dining room set, so that makes an empty room in the middle of the house. But we’re really pretty well off now.

I work at the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. It’s a Civil Service job in peace time, but I’m a War Service employee for the duration plus six months.

At work they actually do research work on airplanes. They are working on the B–29 Super-Fortress to prevent overheating of the engines at high altitudes. I am in the Icing Research division and the work there is to combat ice formation on airplane wings, propellers, windshields and carburetors. There is a large wind tunnel there where they make a 30 mile an hour breeze, lower the temperature to –40° F and dump water all over the place to watch it freeze up. My part in all this is to coordinate and expedite the fabrication work going on.

Just to show you how close Cleveland is to everyone, just realize this: That if Berlin were in Cleveland:

a. The Russians would be in Philadelphia

b. The Italian front would be in Birmingham, Alabama

c. The Normandy break through would have been in Kansas City, Missouri

Ellen

August, 1944

Columbia, Missouri

Miriam, here are some jokes we hear at the University of Missouri:

Oh, dear, I’ve missed you so much! And she raised her revolver and tried again.

The shades of night were falling fast

When for a kiss he asked her.

She must have answered yes, because

The shades came down much faster.

Melvin! Melvin!

What, Ma?

Are you spitting in the fishbowl?

No, Ma, but I’m coming pretty close.

Carolyn

August 9, 1944

The Wayside

Kathryn, I had no trouble reading your handwriting. You can’t help it if the rest don’t know how to read.

Everyone else seems to be lauditing their fair cities, so let me tell you about Nevada. (City of 8,000 in southwestern Missouri, 7 miles from The Wayside, the Gray’s 500 acre farm) I’m spending the summer vacation with Mama at The Wayside. Now Nevada’s not the third in the world, like Chicago or fifth in the country, like Cleveland—no! It didn’t stoop to anything lower than first—first in Vernon County! The size isn’t the only remarkable thing about it—no indeed. It boosts of a large lake (I know that’s boost and not boast, but with that lake it can stand a boost) with modern swimming pool—fully inoculated with ring worm. For entertainment you can do innumerable things (but you better not get caught at them). It’s really quite the city.

Miriam

August 1, 1944

Austin, Texas

You can talk all you want to about your third cities, your fifth cities, and your first cities. Phooey on all of you. I live in the best city—the capital of the BEST state in the United States. ‘Scuse it, please. I’ve lived in Texas too long already. And I’ve signed a contract to teach here at the University of Texas another year. By that time I will be a complete loss and the Gray family, damyankees all, will erase my name from the family Bible.

You’ve no doubt heard the Texan’s prediction of how long the war will last. It will take a year to beat Hitler, another year to lick the Japs, and three years to get the damyankees out of Texas.

Kathryn

August 28, 1944

Terre Haute, Indiana

I had to wait two days for my injured feelings to recover about my handwriting. At least, I know who my real friends are. I will remember what you said, Carolyn. Thanks for them kind words. I’ll have you all know that a handwriting expert studied a sample of my writing and she said it showed character, originality, great determination, leadership, and consideration!

You can talk all you want about your cities, being third, fifth, first, The Best, but now wait until I tell you about Terre Haute. Terre Haute will stop all talk about city pride. It is first in three things. It is the dirtiest city in Indiana, it is the hottest, and it has the lowest standard of living! Now, the rest of you hush.

Gertrude

September 1, 1944

Washington, D.C.

Sandy has improved in the last week. His last tooth that was coming through has come, and presto he is our old sweet boy again. He gets into everything. I have to keep everything locked, and then I forget what is locked, and I am always ripping off fingernails or pulling myself into locked doors. So far I haven’t forgotten where I’ve hidden the key once I’ve been brutally reminded that a certain door or drawer is locked, but that will come next.

Ralph

September 3, 1944

Green Meadows, Maryland

Gad, sirs and mesdames, leave us stop a moment and consider this frankenstein we have brought into the world. Shall we let it live and grow to gradually dominate us all, or should we kill it now that it has only drawn two breaths, so to speak? It was exactly one month ago tonight that I struggled with the rugged youngster and finally (I thought) smothered him by stuffing him in a letter box—and now here he is back again—twice as big, four times as strong, an endless chatterer.

Kathryn, I am contrite. I didn’t realize you would take my remarks personally! From Vernon’s description of his typewriter, I believe you’re as well off with a pen and your strong-character-showing script.

I have a suggestion. Is there some way these letters could be saved, volume by volume? We already have a fan. Jean said if these letters keep coming around so often, she’ll cancel her membership in the Literary guild.

I’ve been canoeing a couple of times recently, too. We canoed to Sycamore Island, shot two beautiful rapids in the Potomac, came down to Little Falls, and into the Canal proper.

And so, bidding reluctant farewell to the smiling, but slightly scrofulous natives of beautiful little Upsqutch on the Downgrade, we drifted slowly across the cove into sunset, each dip of the paddle in the phosphorescent water stirring up memories that would never die of this carefree corner of the world where the smiling but slightly scrofulous natives had no thought other than our pleasure (or our money)—where statuesque palms rimmed the strand, where three kinds of poi were served at every meal—chocolate and lemon—and where the thatch mattress had no ticking, but ticks!

Does canoeing in Texas affect you that way, Miriam? I thought I was at the magazine office there for a minute. [National Geographic]

Ellen

September 11, 1944

The Wayside

Carolyn and I went down to the Big Pasture this morning, waded through the wet weeds neck high, pushed aside snakes, dogged the cattle, and got bitten by a spider to pick some wild grapes. After an hour we had a bushel of grapes. We stemmed them for two hours. They are about as big as a BB shot. We ended with half a gallon of grapes which turned into eight small glasses of jelly. Sure, I know it’s silly, but the jelly is good.

Carolyn

September 11, 1944

The Wayside

You can all talk all you want to about style, but I have you all beat. Last Thursday I had a date. I decided to do it up brown for a change and got all dolled up—hat and all—and was waiting. He came right on time—in the tractor. I dashed upstairs and got un-dressed-up so he wouldn’t think I was expecting anything, and we went in high style. I sat in the seat of the tractor with my nice new coat wrapped around me, and he stood on the axle and guided the tractor. To add the homey touch, his dog was running along behind. We clipped into town at ten miles an hour and went to the show. People did look at us strangely. Now I’ll explain. He’s making hay (the kind that grows) over at Burris’s [neighbor east of The Wayside] and since his car was in the garage, he came out on the tractor. Consequently he had to take me to town on it, too. It was fun.

Do you know the difference between a diplomat and a lady? When a diplomat says yes he means maybe: when he says maybe, he means no: when he says no, he’s no diplomat. When a lady says no, she means maybe; when she says maybe she means yes; and when she says yes, she’s no lady.

Miriam

September 16, 1944

Austin, Texas

I have a suggestion for a coat of arms for these letters: Letters rampant on a field of corn.

Kathryn

September 29, 1944

Terre Haute, Indiana

We had a longish weekend outing at Turkey Run State Park and we had a delightful time. The children loved it. We had bunk beds for them. Jimmie slept downstairs and each night as he got in he would say, Can’t rain on me, Daddy, as if he were used to the rain dripping in his face all night long.

Gertrude

October 3, 1944

Washington, D.C.

I might add here that I resigned from the Library of Congress September 30. Finally after all these months of indecision, I decided to stop it all before my record became so involved, they couldn’t get it clean enough for me to resign. As it was it took half a day to resign, and it turned out that I owed the Library $33.33 which had to be paid before I could resign. That is one reason why people, once they get into the government, stay in—it takes so long to get out. To clear the good name of the Library as to why I should have to pay them money instead of vice-versa is that I had taken some leave in advance and hadn’t worked long enough to pay it all back!

This is for parents only. Have any of you had a crib rocker and a night owl for a child? Sandy wakes up two or three times during the night and starts to shake his crib. Since our house is definitely not sound proof, Alex wakes up and starts using his graphic vocabulary, then I wake up, tell him to quiet down, then Sandy starts talking and singing having a wonderful time. By the time we are so mad at him that our sleep is gone forever, he quietly goes to sleep. Night after night it is wearing, and the doctor says there’s nothing we can do about it; but something should be done about us. Alex says when Sandy and I come to see him in an institution for the incurably insane, Sandy should bring a hammer and start making noise. Then he’ll know who it is no matter how insane he is. Sandy wakes up bright and chipper in the morning, but Alex and I are beginning to look like a perpetual hangover.

What do you all think about Papa? His retirement (as director of the National Highway Users Conference), I mean. I was completely surprised, and can’t adjust myself to the fact that he is at home all hours of the day. Today he kept Sandy while Mama and I went to the store, and I have never seen anyone go more out of character than that. I offered to pay him quite well if he’d care to take it up to earn a little money to tide him over his non-earning period, but he didn’t seem to be interested.

I always write these letters with a good deal of trepidation because I send them directly to Ralph and Jean, two smart English majors. They hover about like two unwelcome spirits in my sub-conscious mind (which, of course, is all of it) while I am constructing my bit and, as a result, I get things more confused than one would ordinarily think possible.

Ralph

October 6, 1944

Green Meadows, Maryland

My firm has a letterhead too, Harold. Feel the quality. Dig the engraving. But the reason I am using it is that it’s the only paper of regulation size I could lay hands on, on which to use the typewriter of my neighbor, who is now back in town, with. Now Gertrude, don’t fret any more about your letter coming to an English major, after that last sentence. I can’t speak for Jean who after all is (or was) the student in this family, but for myself, after absorbing day after day the erudite atmosphere of National Geographic Society, I find this monthly literary slumming quite restful, don’t you know!

Various of us using the word sibling in these letters reminds me that when studying Anglo-Saxon in Collich I leaned that the sib of sibling is the same as the sip in gossip. Both mean a relation. Which prompts a title for the series—Siblings’ Gossip. But Miriam’s coat of armor stands! It’s perfect.

So you see, Harold, some people DO get something out of college.

Carolyn, have you heard why the little moron decided to quit being a chain smoker? Because he found out that tobacco tasted better. Yock, Yock!

Vernon

October 14, 1944

Cleveland, Ohio

Mama wrote that Papa is in the hospital to undergo some bladder operation. It’s like him not to let anyone know there was anything wrong with him until it got that bad. I can’t recall him or Mama either ever complaining much to speak of. I feel sure that Papa will not have much trouble undergoing it.

Ellen

October 18, 1944

Columbia, Missouri

Miriam, since you seem to be the artist of the family, why don’t you draw up your coat of arms, submit it for approval and have it printed on regulation size typing paper with the name Siblings’ Gossip and distribute it to us all to write on? Then the letters will be easier to keep, to read, and it may encourage a more extensive use of the typewriter. Hint, Kathryn! Then poor little nobodies like me will not feel so unimportant when the elder siblings flourish their business stationery. Printed stationery might give the letters more distinction, and they need it.

Miriam

October 23, 1944

Austin, Texas

A male cow is known as a bull—which they rope in West Texas, fight south of the border, and shoot in Austin.

Harold

November 11, 1944

Chicago, Illinois

Gordon has gained a pound since birth, is quite handsome (in our prejudiced opinion), eats, cries and sleeps the days away. He has a long oval head, better described as shaped like a watermelon. Chester and Tommy are very proud of him. They bring up all the stray kids of the neighborhood to see him at frequent intervals fairly bursting with pride and eyes popping with admiration. He takes up no more room in our bedroom than my desk used to, and Lida and I seem to be getting along about as well with three as we did with two in this diminutive firetrap. Gordon gets six feedings per day which cuts into our sleep as much as nights out with the boys did in better, I mean, earlier days.

I spent last weekend in Washington and saw Dad about twice a day. He is recovering from the operation at the average speed for that very serious operation. He had some exposed plumbing, as he called it, attached to him. He had lost a lot of weight and his voice was very weak. However, when I left, his voice was about back to normal and he was doing fine. He did not like the food, so several of us brought in things that he liked. He devised a means of getting good coffee by sending an orderly across the street to fetch some Java from a hamburger joint at a total cost of 25 cents per cup. He had his usual wit and sense of humor. About every other day he would dictate answers to the many letters he is receiving from business acquaintances.

Kathryn

November 17, 1944

Terre Haute, Indiana

After all those very unkind remarks about my individualistic handwriting (after all, you don’t see many like mine in the course of a day’s work) you don’t deserve to be treated to this very fine typewriter, the borrowing of which I had to use as security the family silver. You will never know just what I had to go through to get this, too hoomilating, as Carolyn so aptly puts it. But after Ellen and Carolyn both used a typewriter, I had to do something drastic. And drastic it was. Don’t mention it to Dudley, for I wouldn’t want him to know what I went through to get it. I had to have references, give life and fire insurance.

Dudley and I are planning a trip to Indianapolis the Saturday after Thanksgiving and we are driving, no less. We seem to have enough gas to go, and it would be impossible to go on the train and take the brats. After all, we haven’t been more than five miles out of town in our car since we arrived here a year ago.

Gertrude

November 23, 1944

Washington, D.C.

I guess everyone is interested in a report on Papa, and since I was at the folk’s today, I guess I’m the one to give it. He was looking fine, and eats like a harvest hand now. Some of you have heard about his wine drinking, but I’m going to tell it anyway. After his operation to stimulate his appetite, the doctor ordered a small glass of port before each meal. He took to it like a duck to water, and the day he came home, Alex bought him a quart and took it over. Alex said he never expected to stand at the front door of the folks’ with a cigar in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. Then a night or two later I was over there and Mama asked me it I didn’t want a little of Papa’s wine! It was stunning to say the least! I became quite embarrassed and stammered a negative reply of some sort. What would you have done? Next it won’t surprise me that Mama is taking a snifter now and then.

Ralph

November 27, 1944

Green Meadows, Maryland

All the particulars aren’t in yet, but in about two weeks I’ll have a new job at the Geographic. I will be editor of a 12-page publication called Geographic School Bulletin, which goes to school teachers and students once a week through the school year. Perhaps you have seen it, Miriam. Very few people seem to know about it, although it has a circulation of 32,000 a week—a figure that is held down by the paper shortage. The idea of the thing is for use as collateral reading in geography. There is a story on a geographic locality or a related subject for every day in the week. It is quite popular with teachers because while the students are wading through that dull stuff the teachers can pull the latest edition of Love Story Magazine out of their drawer and catch up on their reading.

One evening into a Brooklyn bar walked a man who had a carrot stuck in each ear. The bartender, thinking this was just another rib, said to himself, I’m not biting, I won’t say a thing, maybe it will go away! So the man sat there and quite normally drank two or three drinks and left. The next night at the same time he walked in again. Again he had a carrot sticking out of each ear. The bartender was getting pretty interested now, but he controlled his curiosity, saying to himself, If this routine occurs again tomorrow night, I’ll just have to ask him why he wears carrots in his ears. The third night, sure enough, the same fellow walked in the bar, but instead of carrots in his ears, he had bananas. The bartender, with a note of pleading, incipient hysteria in his voice, said, Please tell me why you have those bananas stuck one in each ear? The man said, Well, you know it was a funny thing. This morning when I was getting dressed I couldn’t find any carrots.

Vernon

December 3, 1944

Cleveland, Ohio

Harold, just to show you what a hick dump you live in, there’s not a building in Chicago that’s as high as the Terminal Tower in Cleveland! I guess New York and Cleveland are really the big cities on this earth.

Miriam

December 14, 1944

Austin, Texas

I designed, ahem, a letterhead using the coat-of-arms I suggested and the name Siblings’ Gossip suggested by Ralph, had an engraving cut, and ordered stationery printed as my contribution to our mutual benefit.

The eight ears of corn, of course, represent the eight siblings and the circle motif represents the endless cycle of the robin. The coat of arms, remember, is Letters Rampant on a Field of Corn. That is rather obvious in the design.

Harold

December 27, 1944

Chicago, Illinois

How about it Kids? A rising vote of thanks for our oldest and smallest sister for being so generous of her time and money, so full of beneficence and goodwill, so selfless in her devotion to us later-born, and so helpful to all robineers in providing us all with this stationery!

Glad to hear about your work, Ralph and Vernon. Me old breast is aburst with pride for the both of you. You are definite assets to the family, a development I hardly would have predicted ten years ago.

When Mother and Dad were here we were very pleased to see Dad looking about the same as he always did. He wasn’t as vigorous as usual, but he looked fine. After viewing their latest descendant [Gordon], they seemed to feel that the deficiencies of the second generation may be overcome in the third and that the Gray clan may even yet amount to something.

Vernon, just how high is Cleveland’s Terminal Tower? And do they measure from the level of the public square or from the bottom of the river valley just behind this sole high building in the Forest City? How many stories high is it? There are an even ten buildings in Chi that are 44 stories high.

Kathryn

January 2, 1945

Terre Haute, Indiana

Dudley made a quick trip to Texas and came back with a broken finger. A man fell on it as they were climbing around on a ladder looking at boilers or something. He told the boys at the office how he broke it, but they just hah-hahed in his face, so now he just tells everyone he broke it reaching for a cigarette butt. It surely does handicap him, as it is on his right hands. He does enjoy getting out of bathing the children, just when it is getting hard for me to even get near the tub. [pregnant with Virginia]

I have one thing against this Robin. It always comes in the mail, naturally, which never arrives before 11:45 A.M. I can’t resist not opening it, and once opened I read it through, and that means lunch is late, and the kids get mad, and in general throws me of for the rest of the day, for once I get out of my routine, I am lost. I shall just have to use more will power in the future and wait until after lunch to read it.

It seems there was a farmer who lived down Trenton way and every once in a while he would go into town to get a crock of gin. One day as he was returning with his gin, a drummer who was sitting across the way from him asked him the time. The farmer didn’t say anything, so the drummer asked him again. The farmer said, Won’t tell you. The drummer asked why he wouldn’t answer a civil question, so the farmer said, I’ll tell you why I won’t tell the time to you. I’d tell you the time, then the first thing we’d be talkin’ an’ I’ve got a crock of gin between my legs here, an’ I will be wantin’ to take a drink in a few minutes, so I’d offer you one, an’ you’d take it, then we’d talk some more, and we’d drink some more, an’ we’d come to my station an’ I’d ask you to off an’ come up to my house, an’ you would, an’ we’d talk some more an’ drink some more, an’ it would come supper time an’ my old woman would ask you to stay for supper, an’ you would, an’ after supper we’d talk some more an’ drink some more, an’ I’d ask you to stay the night an’ you would, an’ in the middle of the night I’d have to get up to go to the pump an’ I’d pass by my daughter’s room an’ there’d you be, in bed with her, so I’d have to go rummagin’ around in my bureau drawer huntin’ for my gun, an’ my old woman would have to go get up an’ hitch up the horse an’ go after the preacher an’ I don’t want no God damned son-in-law who don’t own a watch.

Miriam, do you want this one explained, too, like the one with the carrots?

Gertrude

January 7, 1945

Washington, D.C.

We are now in an unsettled frame of mind. Alex is being considered by the State Department for a Publications Officer. The State Department is setting up six offices now with the idea that later there will be one in nearly every American Embassy. He is being considered for the Belgrade office which would include all the Balkans. The object is to secure their government publications in exchange for ours. He would be gone at least eighteen months.

Ralph

January 13, 1945

Green Meadows, Maryland

This stationery is great, Miriam, and is up to the usual high standards of everything done by the dean of the siblings. Papa suggested the only improvement I have heard voiced anent said letterhead. He said a small brown jug, marked XXX, lying in the shade of one of the stalks, would get across the idea of another type of corn. I guess after reading some of the letters he felt that the corn motif could not possibly be overdone.

That same Brooklyn bar patronized by the man with the carrots in the ears had another squirrelly customer one night. He ordered an old-fashioned and after drinking it calmly, ate all the cocktail glass but the stem. The man sitting next to him looked at him in a surprised way, but his surprise was nothing to the bartender’s flabbergastedness. The man then ordered another old-fashioned and drank it and then ate the cocktail glass, all but the thick stem. The man next to him shook his head sadly and the bartender was fit to be tied. Then the man ordered another old-fashioned and drank it and then ate the cocktail glass, all but the stem. Suddenly he got up and walked out before the bartender could question him. So the bartender said to the man who had been sitting beside the glass-eater, That man must be crazy. The other man said, He certainly must be, leaving the best part every time.

Vernon

January 20, 1945

Cleveland, Ohio

Harold, the mere fact that YOU live in Chicago, doesn’t make its buildings any higher. Chi MAY have more Pollocks than Warsaw; it MAY have more barrel-houses than New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore; it MAY even have the world’s largest slaughtering pens but it certainly DOESN’T have as high buildings as Cleveland. Take our Terminal Tower, for example; it is 916 feet high, or if you can’t compare without knowing the stories, it is 53 stories high. What did you say was Chi’s highest—45 or 47??

Harold

February 20, 1945

Chicago, Illinois

Chicago has browned out 100% The only outdoor lights left are street lamps, and alternate ones of the brightest of them are off. Same is true in Detroit, Columbus, Milwaukee, and Lansing, to give you an idea of Midwest patriotism and my travels lately.

And speaking of travel…I have found the trains running half empty many times. Only occasionally do you have a seat partner on coaches hereabouts now. People really are staying home. This was true even before the convention ban.

I would suggest that any juveniles still left in the family should hold this letter at arms length, for it is reeking with mumps. Chester just got out of bed after his chin deflated, and Tommy is due to start expanding under the chin any day now.

Kathryn

February 24, 1945

Terre Haute, Indiana

Harold, a suggestion. Please address the Robin just to me. Dudley and I had a big argument. I hadn’t read it until he came home and he started to read it first. I said nothing doing, I was going to read first, for after all it was addressed to me, but he proved me wrong. It was addressed to both of us, but I did read it first.

Katie Gray has started to kindergarten. Yesterday at lunch she asked, Mommy, what did I do all the time before I went to school? Before she started she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, put on her leggings, at least not without an awful lot of fuss. After only three days at school she came home one day to tell me about a girl that was five and a half years old who couldn’t even put on her snow suit. Education is a wonderful thing!

Vernon

March 18, 1945

Cleveland, Ohio

Harold, Cleveland is 100% browned out too!

Manager to fighter: Why didn’t you weave