Telegram from Captain Reginald Morris Phillips to Jack Davis, August, 1946.
Letter from Kathryn Scott to Emma Campbell-Hayes, September, 1946
Dearest Sister-Mine,
Fall in Minnesota is just lovely. Everywhere I look, just a rainbow of colors rippling across the hills. I look forward to some easier days now that canning is starting to wrap up, and the honey harvest is now safely over... I thank God for that! You see, that rapscallion of a Mac has only just now told me that he has a deadly allergy to bee stings... and he's been out there helping Jafe harvest honey just as if one sting from one of those dreadful insects couldn't make him drop over dead! He'll stay away from the bees now, mark my words, he is no longer allowed within a quarter mile radius of those beehives, or my name isn't Katie Scott. But just to be on the safe side (you can't imagine how stubborn he is) I have duly researched and invested in one of those fancy new Ana-kits that they started making during the war... that should stop an allergic reaction if ever he has one.
Speaking of Jafe, though, I have news. And I... well, I probably shouldn't be sharing right now, but he didn't tell me not to, so just... keep quiet about it, I guess. I guessed right, and the poor man does have a tragic backstory. I don't know much about it, just that there was a girl he loved, years ago, and she broke his heart. I think he had asked her to marry him and she said no.
She's back in Lanesboro now, this girl Jafe loved. She used to teach at the school in the next town over, but they closed that school down and combined the students in the Lanesboro school. So she's come home to keep teaching, and she goes to our church. Jafe has taken to sitting in the back row and vanishing out the door the moment the minister stops preaching. I wish... I wonder if... if there's anything I could do... how about it, Emma? You've got an imagination, and an eye for romance... is there anything I can do or is it best if I just wait and do nothing? Shall true love prevail unaided?
Just last Sunday, our minister announced that he plans to retire soon. We're all sorry to hear it... he's such a dear man. And I've barely had a chance to know him. He preaches simply lovely sermons... the kind that make you so intensely aware of God's love and blessing. It'll be a few months though, they have to choose a new minister yet. We don't want to get one from seminary, we just plan to choose one straight out of the congregation, we'll be voting on it in a little while. I like that. Without all that fancy education, a minister will just rely on the Bible, and I think that's the way to go.
And now the most exciting part of all: our house is now officially finished! We'll be having a barn-raising with all the community to take care of that part, and then Mac will work on the woodshop whenever he can over the rest of the fall and winter. The barn raising is the second Saturday in October, couldn't you please come out for it, dearest sister? I promise you we certainly won't let you starve, and you'll have the most comfortable accomodations I can possibly muster up. Please, please do! I'm writing to Ronnie and Rachel too, and I'll keep on begging you till you 'phone and say you can come. I am simply aching to see you all... even if it's just for a few short days, won't you, please??
Telegram from Refugee Board in London to Ronald Stewart, September, 1946
WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT REQUESTED INFORMATION ON REBEKAH AND RISHONA ADLER IS UNAVAILABLE STOP THERE IS NO RECORD OF THEIR ENTRANCE INTO THIS COUNTRY OR RESIDENCE IN ANY REFUGEE CAMP IN ENGLAND
Letter from Anne Tyler to Nellie Webster, September, 1946
Dear Sister,
It seems so long since I saw you and all the dear little ones! How are they, each and every one? Has Megan finished the stitchery sampler I gave her for her birthday yet? And did Eddie's front teeth grow in? How many pounds has the baby gained? And did the flower seeds I send grow well? Tell me all the news! I know you're busy, but I want to know every last little bit, every teeniest-tiniest detail!
It frustrates me that your letters are so much more interesting than mine... oh, I try, but there isn't much I have to write about... although school is back in session, which is lovely, I do get so terribly lonesome and bored during the summer. Occasional music lessons simply don't provide enough company.
Oh, but did I tell you the big news? They shut down my school... imagine that, after so many years... but I managed to get a position teaching at the Lanesboro school. So here I am back home again... I moved in again with Mama and Papa. Never thought I'd find myself living at home at thirty-three years old... a little pathetic, isn't it? A grown woman, and still not really out on my own. But I must be careful or I'll swallow myself up with these dreadful "if onlys"...
Yes, I know what you're thinking at this very moment, sister-mine. I can see that teasing smile of yours and it is just as infuriating as ever... and don't I wish I could see it though! But yes... he's still here in Lanesboro... you know he'll never change. And don't you go making something out of nothing. He's as confirmed an old bachelor as I am a spinsterly old "schoolmarm". My work is my life, my students are my family now. I've gotten quite over that old heartbreak, thank you very much. And I wouldn't dream of letting him know I ever cried over him. He never felt anything truly for me, you know. We were only ever just real good friends... I think I must have been something like a little sister to him, you know how he loved to tease me. Never could take a thing he said seriously.
End of Part One
Wasn't Gilbert always telling Anne that matchmaking was not for amateurs? I feel like I should remind Katie of that.
ReplyDelete. . . I also feel like it's gonna work out despite all. So I shan't bother. :P