Mon. July 20, 1942
Letter #9
My Darling Jeannette:
Well my dear I’ll answer your letters that I received yesterday morning now. If you have received my yesterday’s letter (started Saturday) you’ll know I received your welcome letters of July 7 (#4) and July 9 (#5) yesterday morning. They keep all your letters up to date through July 9th. And I keep them all, darling, and reread them from time to time.
Also I wrote you, before I received a letter from your father on Saturday the 18th, and the resistor coil for the electric razor then also. I’m now using my Shavemaster again and enjoying it. The Remington Rand razor will not work with the coil but don’t send me another, as I’ll only use my Shavemaster. Then there may be times when I will not be able to use an electric razor. Tell your father I appreciated his letter and will write him when I can.
I received a June 26th newspaper also but none between June 6th and that one though. You asked if the two jars of candy, the soap dish and soap arrived. Yes, safely dear and I thank you kindly for them. I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I believe that they arrived. I’m still enjoying the first jar of hard candies. I’ve not opened the stick candy yet. The soap dish is in constant use also.
I hope the cat and dog are getting along well by now. Let me know. It is nice that you are enjoying your work and I think that you are certainly doing your part in that sort of work. I am glad for you darling that you are doing something you like to take up your time while we are separated.
Glad Mr. Crane is going to take the house for another year. You can make the lease for a year but not longer, I think (and hope). I received your letter telling about selling the refrigerator. That was well done, rather.
I am enclosing a check for $150.00, dear. It is the uniform allowance I receive under a law passed last March. If one has not been to over two 2 week camps (and I’ve been to only 2) and if one has never had an allowance for uniforms since being commissioned (and I haven’t), then one is entitled to it. Put it on the house please dear. And let me know in your next regular wire that you received the check.
Now about the house, you might think about setting out the row of poplars along the back wall so they will be grooming well when we get back there again! Buy at least 10 or 15-feet high trees and plant them close enough for a good hedge from one end to the other. That should be done when the grading is finished before seeding.
Yes, I know Major Parke; you mentioned meeting his wife at Red Cross. I was glad to hear about all the neighbors and how they are getting along as you wrote on your ride over there with your father July 9th.
And how is my darling getting along now also? I hope you are well as ever in health and work both. I’m not as well as usual or as busy as usual also. I’ve not been on any trips lately however as I have been quite busy in the office with my regular work, reports, charts, etc.
It is rotten of Kenneth to walk out on Dad and the factory. I hope he comes around for a job again after the war. I’ll enjoy the pleasure of telling him where to go and it won’t be very pleasant for him, I can assure you. I’m glad Dorothy and Bobby had a good vacation. Tell them I’ll write soon. Also the next time, to remember whom she meets—who was a classmate of mine and on the fencing team with me.
Well about yesterday now. I finished my letter last night to you rather abruptly and hope you will excuse it as I was quite tired and it was rather late.
Another officer had bought me two small fryers out in the country. I had them dressed here and took them over to McDowell’s in the morning. Also I got some corn meal and made them some corn bread. It turned out very well also. Then I fried the chickens the way Amelia used in flour and shallow grease and made gravy. They were excellent too. I’m afraid I made rather a pig of myself at the table, but we do not get fried chicken in the mess, only baked about once a month or less. A soldier (English) friend of Mrs. McDowell’s was there. They all enjoyed the chicken and corn bread very much. They had never had fried chicken in the English Army. In fact they do not feed the soldiers or officers nearly as well as we do. English soldiers like to be attached to American units for special duty so they can eat much better (and officers too as far as that goes).
We had a vegetable salad and some cookies for dessert. During the afternoon we visited and then had tea about six (crackers, cheese, cookies and jello and tea of course also). We then went to church--Evening Prayer as none of us had been in the morning. After church, I left McDowell’s and went back to the rector’s (Mr. Butler’s) house for the evening as he had asked me the week before. I had tea there again (cold meal, salad, tea and cake). We visited in the evening and Mr. Butler showed me some photographs of previous scout camps he had conducted. They were very interesting.
He is taking the scout troop out for a fortnight today to an old abbey down near Downpatrick. They will camp in tents for the two weeks. I should like to get down to see them but probably won’t be able to do so. I asked them about their food. He has to get their ration books from their parents and take them along. Then each week, he takes them into the food authorities in Downpatrick and they cancel some of the tickets and issue him a week’s emergency ration books for each one person. There are lots of complications here that we don’t have at home. The boys go by train and walk from Downpatrick to the old abbey with the scoutmaster. Mr. Butler is going to cycle down.
Well, darling, this letter has turned into a longer one than I planned, but I enjoy writing to you so much that I don’t know when to stop, I guess. It seems every time I write that there isn’t much to say, but I seem to find it as I go along (like mother I guess).
Sweetheart, I love you so much and I miss you greatly. I enjoy being out but I think of you and wish always that you were here with me. I’ll be so happy when we are together again, I believe, I won’t know what to do (I don’t think I’ll quite be as much as the soldier though who wrote to his wife to get a good look around the room because all she would see is the ceiling when he returned). (However and none the less______ but enough said for this time I guess.)
Well good night, my darling. All my love, and kisses too, to you sweetheart until I can really give them to you again.
Love,
P.S. I am enclosing an English penny for you.