April 7, 1944

Dearest Hal,

I am beginning to get very much worried for fear there won’t be much left of you when they finally do decide to let you come home. First you are losing your teeth and then you nearly get an eye knocked out. What ever will happen to you next, I wonder. I hope your eye is well by now and didn’t hurt you very much. I am always afraid of a lick like that for fear it will cause permanent injury. I am afraid you aren’t taking very good care of my husband for me.

I had a long letter from Lib Y. yesterday. Paul is taking some kind of course from Fort B. and Lib and the children are staying with Gladys, Lib’s sister, in Warm Springs. Paul gets home for weekends. They thought it was a wonderful piece of luck for Paul to be sent to Fort B. He finishes his course the 27^th of April and will be transferred then of course. They plan to leave Patsy there to finish out the school term, and the she will go to visit Doris and price[?] for the summer. Lib will take Pete and go with Paul if she can. Lib has been real sick. She had several severe gall bladder attacks but the doctors hope she is all right now and will not have to have an operation. Lib said they were anxious for some news of you and did hope I was right in expecting you home. I had written her I was hopeful of such an event.

Frank B. has been in the hospital. He had an operation for hemorrhoids and seemly was getting along fine. The day he was supposed to go home he developed pleurisy and very narrowly escaped having pneumonia. Tish was terribly worried about him of course. Frank has never been sick and you know how Tish feels about him. Mrs. Penn came down from Roanoke to stay with the children because Tish had to stay with Frank. It is quite impossible to get a nurse in Staunton or Waynesboro unless you have her engaged weeks ahead. All the nurses and doctors too, are simply worked to death.

Frank is better now, home from the hospital, but he hasn’t gone back to work yet. Sam and I went down to see Tish and were much surprised to hear all this. Yesterday I talked to Tish and she said Frank was home. Bobby was taking something and Tish thought it was the measles. He and Penn both had been exposed so I guess they would have it. I am glad to know Sam is all through with those.

Daddy is waiting to see Dr. Thomas. I seem to do a large part of my corresponding while I sit in some doctor’s waiting room. It seems like a good way to put in the time. I was afraid Daddy wasn’t going to be able to make it today. I didn’t see how he would in the car but he finally did. I am afraid he is not getting any better, worse really and I certainly do worry about it. It makes us all feel so badly to see him so blue and discouraged over his condition.

Sam had a letter from little Va. Bumgardner yesterday. Virginia wrote that Rudolph is attending school at Fort Leaven worth Kansas for three months. His family stayed on in Texas.

Helen B. is home for Easter with her children but we have not seen them yet. Billie B. is just back from spending a week’s vacation at Miami Beach. She had a wonderful time and was quite a hit with the young officers there or so I gathered from her account of it. She and another girl who went with her had to sit on their suitcases from Richmond to Fayetteville N.C. before they finally got a seat. Traveling these days is really something but I imagine we will find out all about that when you get home. I dread it in a way but I can put up with anything of only it means we are going to be together again. I am afraid the chances don’t look quite so good now; I am afraid it will be longer than we think.

I do wish Dr. Thomas would hurry. I want to get home to my baby chickens. We have 204 now. Two of them died but the nest seem to be doing fine. It has turned cool since we came up here and I’m afraid they will get chilled. We were having some terribly cold windy weather when I got them on Tuesday, and I had to get up at night to see about them. Yesterday to my great relief it warmed up considerably but now it is cloudy, and I fear it will rain, with the garden still to be plowed. Oh well, spring will probably come some of these days. Summer has never seemed so far away, and time has never passed so slowly. I hope when it finally comes it will bring me the thing I want most in the world. I can think of nothing else but your coming home and it makes waiting harder than ever.

All my love,

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