March 23, 1944.

Dear Son:

Well here I am still sitting around waiting for the time when I can throw away the crutches and get out and back to work, but [I] expect it will be some little time yet. [I] go back to the hospital [April] 1 for another picture and hope they will find the bone knit and take off the cast. My toes are back to normal now but still very sore, and it aches like [heck] but that apparently goes with broken bones. Well enough of that. [I] suppose you will soon be through with your school and then where do you go? I suppose back to Camp Ellis, Ward Irvish. [I wish] you would have a picture just a snap shot that I can take over to [the] Lodge. Yours is the only one that is not there now, and they have asked about it many times so please take care of it. Well this is another rainy day. [We] have had a lot of stormy weather this month. [It] has been March all the time. It started to snow the first of the week, and we got about six inches, but that is about gone now. It has been about like a lake out in the driveway. [It has been] most impossible to get in or out. Wimp has his big job now of watching over me. [He] watches every move I make. [I] dont have time to get lonesome. [I] have lots of company. Someone drops in every evening and then [there is] the telephone. Hope Ruth is O.K. and still has her job. It would be bad if she wasn’t satisfied. Tell her I asked for her. We miss her running in. Freda hasn’t been up to the house yet. It has been so stormy but she will [come]. I want to go to [the] Lodge tonight as they are celebrating their 35^th anniversary dinner at 7 o’clock and then the ceremony presenting the 25 years and over members with jewels. Grand Lodge officers were supposed to be here but I understand some of them can’t make it, so I don’t know the extent of the program. You remember Hugh Mullins. I think that was his name. [He] used to live on Carroll St. [I] saw by the paper last night where his mother took her own life by hanging. [I] expect he is in the service but [I] don’t know. Several local boys are reported missing in action. [I] suppose you know about Chet Bennett. They haven’t heard any more from the War Department as yet, at least as far as we know, but I hope that the news will be better than they really expect. Mrs Willis is not very well but the rest of the neighbors are all O.K. This is about all the news I [can] think of right now, so [I] will ring off.

As Ever,

Your Dad