living in the east

This is an out of order letter that gives my Mother's first reactions to living in the East.  Helen mentioned it in her letter of July 31.  I thought it might be interesting to some of you right now.

                                                                                              July 15, 1962

Dear Mother,

            It is almost unbelievable that it is the middle of July.  We moved into our new home July 1^st, and I don’t know where the time has gone.  It seems that I never get a chance to sit down for a moment to write a letter, so this morning I stayed home from Sunday School to do it.  The rest of the family have just gone.  We live four miles from church by the shortest route, but it has taken us 3 weeks to learn that.  At first, it was seven miles, then we started going different routs, and found 2 that were 5 miles, then last Sunday someone picked Harold up to take him to Priesthood meeting, and went a different way that is just 4 miles.  As the crow flies it can’t be more than 2 miles, but the streets twist and turn, and go up hill and down, and round and round.  I have often thought in my young lifetime that the Latter Day Saints did too much bragging about the way Brigham Young laid out a town with such wide straight streets.  Now, I know that he did a wonderful thing for the people of the west.  Not even in fairy tales have I ever heard of such crazy mixed up streets.  Even people who have lived here for 20 years have a street map with them at all times.  You wouldn’t dare leave home without one.  We have used up 3 already.  I mean they are worn out.

            I have learned a new word since I came here.  I have never seen it in print, but it sounds like this: (ku de sack) It is a French word for dead end street.  However, this dead end street may wind round and round, but will never come out on any other street, or highway.  Sometimes it is just a little circle drive like the one Uncle Mont’s house is on.  I guess after a while we will learn how to get around better.  I always have to allow myself a half hour longer than I plan on at first so that I will get somewhere on time.

            Willy got hit with a rock soon after we moved in, and had to have 2 stitches taken in his head. The stitches were taken out last Monday, and he is ok now.

            When we arrived here 3 weeks ago Betty’s government job had not been given final clearance, and Tom Kimball had given her a job as a typist, which she isn’t.  She worked for him more than a week after we got here, then took the next week off to help me get unpacked.  Tom didn’t need her, he just didn’t want to see her get so discouraged.  I’m sure she did a good job for him tho.  Last Tuesday she started work as a Student Trainee in Physics for the Bureau of mines in the Interior building, the same building Harold works in.  Jane went to town soon after we arrived, and took her civil service tests in Typing, and failed.  She didn’t know she had failed, but thought she had, so went down the next day and took them over, and in several days learned she had passed them the second time.  Wed of this week she started work as a GS 3 the same as Betty for the Budget and Finance of the Geological Survey dept in the Interior building.  With all three of them working in the same building it will make transportation much simpler.  Harold was working an hour later than the girls, but starting Tomorrow they will all three go in at 7:45 and be off by 4:15.  Harold hasn’t been getting home till 6:30, and it has made supper very late.  When the girls took the bus into Washington it cost them 80¢ a day, 40¢ one way.  They are now in a car pool with 2 other men.  It means that Harold will have to drive in 3 days a week, but that is better than 5 days.  The girls are going to pay Dad the 1.60 a day and he will used that for gas.  Actually we are only about 5 or 6 miles from where they work, but the little windy twisty roads takes so long to travel.  It is no wonder that the Americans beat the British.

            I have had one very diffinate impression since we moved here, and that is that the people here want everything left exactly as it is.  They don’t want any change.  There isn’t a building in all of the Washington area over 6 stories high.  They don’t want their streets widened, or straightened.  They won’t even sell a strip of their land along the roadways for a sidewalk.  The trees and underbrush grow right down to the edge of the black top, and you can go for miles without seeing any houses, yet the houses are there I’m told, behind a 20 foot wall of forest.  I would just like to clear some of the trees away so I can see something.

            The town of McLean is just 2 small shopping centers about 3 blocks apart.  It is seldom that you find a shopping area as big as Sugar House.  And yet people don’t go in to Washington to shop because the traffic is so bad.  We live in a new residential area.  It is about 5 years old, and we have sidewalk and curbing.  However Naomi Thomas has been here for 20 years, and she lives closer in to Washington, I think, but they have no sidewalks.

            It is a strange country.  Being so close to the ocean everything should be so green and pretty, but no one ever waters their lawns or gardens.  If it rains and keeps them green, ok, but if it doesn’t, they let the lawns get dry and brown.  If their vegetables don’t grow, they say well, it is just too bad that we haven’t had more rain.  Cucumbers, corn and tomatoes are on the market here now, but at fantastically high prices.  You can see it growing in places, and yet at the little roadside stands they want 39¢ a lb for tomatoes, 10¢ each for cucumbers, and 90¢ a dozen for corn.  The homegrown things they keep high.  You can buy them much cheaper in the super market.  Tomatoes 25¢ a lb, cucumbers 4 for 25¢ and corn 49¢ a doz.  Which still isn’t very reasonable.  Next year we are going to put in a garden.  I almost feel like putting one in here now.  I imagine it would still mature.  We will have to dig up some of the lawn to do it tho.  Our back yard is a terraced hill.

            We have a pair of cardinals nesting in a bush by the back door.  The male is a brilliant red, and the female has an orange head and a brown body.  They had 3 babies last week.  This morning I saw the most beautiful blue bird.  We have a little bird house, and we keep grain in it.  There are many beautiful birds here.  There is also poison ivy everywhere.  Harold pulled some out of our back yard the other day.  You have to have rubber gloves to handle it.

            I have had laryengites since we came here.  My throat gets tight, and I have a bad time.  When I took Willy to the Dr. he told me to stop drinking anything cold, and to drink hot milk as often as possible.  I don’t drink hot milk, but I find that some hot soup relaxes my throat.

            Last week we started building a bedroom in the basement.  One of the church members came, and put in the studding, and broke out a place for a window.  They will finish part of it, and then Harold and Louis will do the rest.  We really need 2 bedrooms in the basement, but I’m sure the one will do for a while.  They are also going to have a bathroom roughed in.  Harold and Louis broke out the cement for that yesterday, and they came upstairs with their clothes as soaking wet as if they had jumped in the river.

            Betty and Jane are still planning on going back to Provo.  Jane has a room in the Wymore [Wymont] housing unit where she will help with the cooking, but she will have supervision.  Betty wrote and tried to get in it too, but they were filled.  Betty has decided she doesn’t want to room with Leta and LoLae but she is afraid of hurting their feelings.  Leta is so moody, and JoLae so loud that Betty would sooner live with someone else, but we are at a loss as to how to get her a room.  I’m wondering if Mont or Helen couldn’t find a place for her to stay.  I would really prefer that they find a place in a dorm where the girls would have supervision, that way they have to be in at a certain hour, and they are more nearly under a home-like atmosphere.  Helen will you see what you can do about getting a room for Betty?  They sent a pamphlet, but no names or addresses of places.  They won’t let them get off campus housing by mail, but said they would help her get housing as soon as she arrived in the fall.

            We met Miller Shurtleff and his wife a week ago, and they are fine people.  I first saw Miller on the stand, and I didn’t know he was there.  Half way thru the meeting I looked up, and thought I was back in Wandamere Ward, and was seeing Bishop Shurtleff.  Just the way he cocked his head or something was exactly like his Father.  They are in the other Ward.  In fact there are 3 wards meeting in the same building.  The ward we are in, McLean was just organized in Jan of this year.  Our Bishop lives about a block from us.

            Louis went on an over-night camping trip on the 4^th of July.  The explorer wents along the Chesapeake-Ohio Canel, and went in canoes.  This canel was a brain child of George Washington, and is nearly as old as our nation, and extends along the Patomic River for about 300 miles.  It was used for commerce before the days of the railroad.  They still preserve it as a canel, I guess more as a tourist attraction than anything else. 

            Marilyn is expecting her baby August 8^th, and I have been wondering about her.  I would like to go out, but it is a long way.  We were surely glad to see them in Denver the week before we left.  Alvin helped me so much with the packing and last minutes errands.  They have a loely family, and are getting along fine.  They bought themselves a 59 Ford car, and they are still planning on going back to school.  However they are anxious to get back closer to the church.  Alvin was hoping the Fryingpan Arkansas river project in Colorado would pass the congress this year, and he would transfer to it.  The last I heard it was nearly all the way thru.  I don’t think final passage has come on it yet.

            We are also looking forward to the time when Helen and Mont will be back in this area.  He will make a very good representative or Senator.  Maybe then we can pay them back for the hospitality they have extended to us in all the past years.  Since your house on 7^th East went under the plough of progress I have felt that the people here don’t know what that sort of thing means.  They seem to be in a state of lethargy.  Everything is history, and must remain history.  They prop up a broken down building being used for a court house, and continue to use it for a court house even tho it will cost more in ten years to keep it in repair than it would cost for 5 new court houses.  I think they need some bold new leaders in this area that are like Brigham Young and a few other Latter Day Saints.  We went to get our drivers licenses the other day, and it took 3 of us 2 hours to get thru the lines to take our tests in an old narrow building that lost its usefulness as a thing of efficiency many many years ago.  I’ve often heard that all Easterners consider the west as being backwoods, and lacking in anything of value.  I have never seen so many things so outdated, and so ar behind the times as I have in this area.  Tom Kimball had a house built here, and wanted the contractors to insulate his walls as well as the roof.  They were perfectly willing to insulate the roof, but they had never heard of walls being insulted.  He insisted, and they did it under protest.  Last week I learned that most people’s heat bills here during 3 months of the winter runs over $70.00 a month.  Tom’s hear bill last winter went under $50.00 a month.  In a way, I have never felt like I lived so cut off from the world.  Perhaps in a year when I become accustomed to this area I will feel different, I will try to write often.  We have daylight saving time here, and I have often wished we had it in Denver, but not any more.  It is daylight till 9 P.M. and we seldom get to bed before 10:30, and we feel tired and dragged out all the time.  I’m hoping with the winter we will get some rest.  It has been raining all night, and is still raining, and quite cool.  I’m going to miss my gas fireplace in Denver when I want to get warm.

                                                            Lovingly,

                                                            Laura

31 July 1962 A letter from Helen Davidson Toronto

                                                                                  Salt Lake City, Utah

                                                                                  July 31, 1962

Dear Laura,

            I've been going to write this letter since before your birthday, but this has been the most hectic summer I can remember and it seems that I have accomplished absolutely nothing to speak of.

            From your letter to mother it sounds as though you are having quite a time in the old East.  I do hope though that you won’t be like so many that have lived in the East and just have never taken time to see the places there that so many people drive thousands of miles to see.  We have friends who lived near Washington for at least 15 years and had never taken the time to visit the places of interest right there in the city, such as the capitol, the white house, the library, etc.  I know it all takes time but it is worth it many times over.  It is just like people here never going to the temple grounds, or Bingham mine etc.

            You wanted us to see what we could do about housing for Betty.  Mont called the housing director yesterday and talked over the situation but he said the only thing Betty could do now was to come a few days early and get something.  This doesn’t sound reasonable to me and I will try to get down to Prove soon and talk to Norma and Ed and see what we can find out.  The director did say that there just isn’t anything at all in the dorms and that there is a long waiting list, they don’t make any promises to those on the waiting list before the second semester.  Bob Toronto’s girls had a place in a home not far from Norma, I believe they did their own cooking, however.  I will see what I can find out for you as soon as possible.

            One of the girls from our ward is married and living in your town.  I talked to her mother about you and she was very thrilled and was writing to Marilyn a few days ago so she may have talked to you already.  She is Marilyn Neely Knudson, 5827 Old Chesterbrook Road in McClean. She graduated from the BYU, married and moved there.  She has one little boy and is expecting another baby soon.  Maybe she can give you some suggestions on housing in Provo.  She is a very nice girl and very talented in things like road show production and musicals.  Her mother is our theology teacher in Relief Society and is a wonderful person.  Their father died of a heart attach about 8 years ago and they have had some struggles, nothing like ours of course but for this area they were difficult. I think an uncle was responsible for Marilyn’s schooling.  She has a sister married to a Cornwall and one married to (I think, Carl Buehner’s son – one of the Buehner’s anyway.  She has two sisters and two brothers still at home.

            I had an unusual experience a week or two ago.  Early one morning a woman called saying that she was visiting her folks home, she was from South Carolina (Myrtle Beach) – her husband is a judge at a big army base there.  One evening she was seated next to the Secretary of State at a big function and in the course of the conversation he found that she was originally from Salt Lake and he asked her if she knew us.  She has been away from Salt Lake for twenty years and has traveled all over the world.  He told her that we were good friends etc. and said that he could always spot the Mormons and liked to sit by them because he could get to drink their liquor.  She said, “well maybe I’m one of those Mormons who like to drink their liquor     “.  He said, “Heaven forbid, I never want to meet one of those.”  Anyway they had quite a conversation about Salt Lake, the Mormons, and the Welfare Plan.  She said that he had everyone at the table straining to hear every word.  There was the governor and all kinds of high officials.  She was so excited in telling about it.  She said she was so grateful that we had been members who stood up for what we believe because as they have traveled around the world some of the people who hold high positions from Salt Lake have not done so and it has been hard for her.  Her husband is not a member, and Frank Thornton said to him, “How can you keep from joining up with them.” She said that it sent her husband to thinking, and it has been a real boon to their branch there at the base.  At any rate in the course of the conversation she mentioned having a sister in McLean and somehow I’ve mislaid the name or never did get it but she teaches school in Arlington, so you may run onto her.  The woman who called was Mrs. Bill Watts, I believe.  I had all the information written down and now for the life of me I can’t find it.  Anyway this woman who called me is at present at an army base in So. Carolina and her husband is an army officer – an attorney and a judge at the base.  You can see why I should have written this sooner.  I hope you can locate her sister through talking around.  Her name might be Bennett.

            We have had so many things happen around here this summer I am a bit of a nervous wreck.  It seemed to start about the 12^th of July and hasn’t let up.  Sally went to a swimming party with 12 other little girls from the ward. It was a birthday party for the daughter of our Relief Society president and they went swimming at Elmo Garff’s place out in Holiday.  Sally had an ear infection so she couldn’t go in swimming but could sit an watch.  It was a warm night and very, very cloudy. LaFarne Garff asked me if I wouldn’t like to go with her just to sit an watch, but we had been to the BYU all day with the Relief Society on a tour and I was tired, besides I wasn’t worrying about Sally because of her ear so I just stayed home with David.  Everyone else was away.  At any rate little Linda Snelgrove drowned, she is the 10 year old daughter of Lucille Wilcken from down on Adams street, if you remember.  It has been such a tragedy for both families and the ward members. LaFarne of course was in worse condition than the Snelgroves so I had to just take over all the Relief Society duties with the help of whoever I could get. Lucille and Barr have been wonderful about the whole thing.  Linda was a little girl just full of vim and pep. They just had the three girls and six boys, so Linda had to keep up with the boys, she was the oldest girl.

            Just a week after that Mont, David, and Joey were going to Tabiona and Roosevelt when they had a blowout up in Daniel’s Canyon and the car turned over.  It came over the news and gave us all such a scare that I haven’t gotten over it yet.  No one was hurt which was just a miracle, the car was wrecked to the tune of about $1200 or more.  It was in the paper and over the radio so we were besieged with calls.  At the time Mont was acting governor because Gov. Clyde is over in Europe - he and his wife went over to meet their daughter who was just released from her mission in England.

            Then a few days ago Grandma Frederickson, next door, had a bad stroke and is in very poor condition.  She has been in a home for six months and it has been very hard on her.  It would be such a blessing if she could just sleep away.  She thinks the Lord has forgotten her, I guess. We were in to see her yesterday and it was sad because her mind is so clear.

            Melba Ralph Black lives in our ward and she has a 19 year old son who has Multiple Sclorosis and is to the point where the doctors have given up.  Sunday the Bishop asked the whole ward to fast for 24 hours for him and then last night we had a prayer meeting at the ward.  June Ralph Jones and her family were there too.  It is very sad because Melba just has two boys and they are very nice and nice looking and very smart.

            Well, there are other things that have happened but this is such a morbid letter that I better stop.

            We had young Roland and his new wife down for dinner on Sunday and had a nice visit with them, they went to church with us.  He has a beard and has had it since before they were married.  Mother can’t stand it, but I think he looks better with it than without.  He says half the people tell him to leave it than without.  He says half the people tell him to leave it on and the other half says he had better cut if off.  His wife likes it, and I guess if she doesn’t mind nobody else should.

            We have friends who live at 7315 Radcliffe Drive, College Park, Maryland. They are Ralph and Betty Huber.  They lived by us when we lived on Wilshire Place.  They have several girls, two of them married, and a little boy.  They are wonderful people and so nice to know.  If you ever hear of them thru the church I certainly wish you would say hello to them for me.  I don’t know whether they would be in your stake or not.  One daughter went to the AC and is now married and I believe lives in Logan.  There are lots of other people there I would like you to say hello to but I can’t think of them.  If you ever meet Sister Bennett, Senator Bennett’s wife, I hope you will speak to her and tell her that you are my sister.  She is so nice and a real wonderful person to talk to.  She is President Grant’s daughter.  I would like to get a cook book from her that she was selling a while back – it is ( receipes) of Senator’s wives etc.  She was selling them to raise funds for the Republicans.  I guess if I took the time I could reach her here because her husband is running for reelection in November against Congressman King.  Although King has to come out on top in the Primary first, but I guess he will.  I hope Bennett wins in Nov. though.  King is a good man I guess and has a nice wife and family, but some of his ideas are way out in left field.  Mont says that he is one of those men that is fine in Church but when he is in politics its just another world entirely.  But that seems to be all too common now a days.

            We have had a very cool summer here so far and I hope it hasn’t been too bad for you there – how I hated the summer in the east, I used to wonder how people could stand it and survive.

            Its about time for the mailman so I better get this letter off quick.

                                                                        Love to all of you,

                                                                                    Your Loving sister, Helen

another two day letter from a more recent time if you can call 44 years recent

                                                    April 14, 1970

Dear Mother,

            Each day I think I will get a letter off to you, and each day goes by so full I just drop off to sleep at night.  We thought we would get a garden planted last night, but it started raining about three in the afternoon, and it rained all night.

            We have had a very cold spring.  Starting about Wednesday of last week the sun began to shine, and it was very warm for 2 days, just long enough to open some of the blossoms.  The forsythia are finally blooming, and also the cherry blossoms.  When the festival opened a week go there wasn't a blossom out.

             .  We talked to them Saturday, and they were getting anxious.  She has been having false labor for three weeks, and spent one night in the hospital last week.  So much has happened since I wrote.  Lou got his induction papers for the army, but also got a deferment for six months, so he will be here when their baby is born in June.

            Ken Babcock went to California to look for a job bout a month ago.  He was gone a week, and came home with a job with I..B.M.  Within two weeks they were gone.  They moved to San Jose, and are living within a mile of where Ken works.  We surely miss the children.  Last Sunday was the first time I had been to church since they left, and there was such an empty feeling to know they weren’t there.

                                   April 15, 1970

            Another day has rolled around.  It is Wednesday, and my day off.  I haven’t been able to go to Relief Society, so last week started going to Vienna Ward on Wednesday.  I am going to try to go every week.  Since I have to work Sundays, I need some association with church even if it is another ward.  Harold came home from work Monday evening, and said the Dr. had called and told him his blood was way down again.  He went in yesterday, and they have him two more pints of blood.  I called Walt Deland, and he made a change in some of the things he has ben giving him.  We are hoping that something will cause a reversal in the spleen and that it will go down.  The last couple of weeks he has slowed down quite a bit.  We have been trying to go for a mile walk every night.  He feels that the blood doesn’t get to his hands and feet as it should, and we are hoping the exercise will help.  He is going to see the Dr. today at noon.

            Saturday, or maybe it was Sunday, Alice and Sam told us they were expecting a baby next December.  They are very happy about it.  They live in an apartment about a block from Betty and Blen’s old apartment.  It is quite small, but they are making drapes, and it will be quite nice.

            Harold Danny has been asked to compete for a chance to be on a television program for next winter.  The program is called “It’s Academic,” and there will be six from his high school that will participate.  The tryout is tomorrow night, at the TV studio.  He went up near Philadelphia last week-end for a three day band trip.  Last Thursday they had their spring band concert, then left the following morning on the band trip.  Two weeks ago he was inducted into the National Honor Society, and he is busy taking national scholarship tests.  He has two to take May Second.

            We have a little dog.  It is so very much like your Skippy.  It is a little Australian silky terrior.  She is just 3 ½ months old, and we are having a time trying to train her.

            We are hoping we will be able to come to Salt Lake the end of June for a few days.

            We still haven’t heard from Alvin and Bev about their baby.  Karen [Carlson] has been  feeling fine, and will probably only work another month.  Betty too is feeling fine.  She just called and wondered if we got any seeds planted Monday night.  It has rained 3 inches since Monday, and I believe it has just stopped.  Everything is so soppin wet.  The ground is like a sponge.  Charlene will be 3 years old on Friday.  Julie will be six on Sat. the 25^th.  Bryan, Alvin’s boy was nine on Monday.

            Write to us when you can.  We all love you very much, and think of your wisdom and counsel so often.

              Lovingly, Laura

The April 11 letter was resent 49 years ago with the April 14 letter

6806 Lemon Road

McLean Va.

April 11, 1965

Dear Mother,

The yellow forsythia is in full bloom, and the daffodills and yet spring is late in coming this year.  The Cherry-blossom festival is over, and the blossoms haven’t come out yet.  As everything come out again I remember seeing them with you last year.  As soon as we get Mike accustomed to us we must bring you back here again.  Mike needs to know you too.  He seems like a boy who has been kept in a dark room, and has suddenly been brought out to see the world of people.  He is completely honest & truthful, yet shy and frightened.  He is going to a gym class each day at the highschool and has a tutor come twice a week to the house.  We hope by fall he will have caught up enough so he can go to regular school

We haven’t heard from Jane & Ken or Lou since conference.  I’m happy Roland saw Lou, and I hope he sold him some insurance.  He doesn’t have any, and he should have, especially if he is going on a mission.  I know that for a while he wanted to get married this fall, but now he is still planning on going on a mission.  I talked to Hyrum Smith, a counslor in our ward who went to conference.  He had seen & talked with Lou, and interviewed him for his mission.  He gave him is Physical forms to fill out too.  So Lou will be coming home in about 7 weeks.  He is working in Cottonwood.  I’ve been meaning to write to Willard & Edna and ask if he couldn’t stay there until time to come home and thus save the money he is spending on housing.  Everything seems to be moving so swiftly I sometimes wonder where we are going.

Harold left a week ago today for Ephrata Washington on an emergency trip, & will be gone till after Easter.  He hopes to get to Salt Lake on his way home.  He must spend at least a day in Boise, and wants to see Gordon in Salt Lake.  Gordon hasn’t once written to Mike in the more than 2 months since he has been here.  He gets a letter from Phyliss & Carol about once a week which is good.

Harold said he would be coming home the first part of the week following Easter, but I’m not looking for him till the end of that week.  I’ve been asked to give a 7 minute talk on  Fast Sunday on how I can make fast Sunday more pleasant.  This talk is to be given the 25^th.

Harold & Willy started their baseball practicing yesterday and Harold is in the Major league this year & has a suit to wear to each game.

Mr. Wilkinson has asked me to take care of Joey & Johnny again when Shelia leaves.  She will be leaving June 1^st.  She wants to stay in Washington & work in an office for 2 months before going back to England.  Laurie & Alice can take care of the 2 boys this summer & earn their school clothes.

We have a new address 6806 Lemon Rd.  Most everyone in Fairfax Co. has a change of address.

Lovingly

Laura

I must try to get letters written to all of them tonight.

April 14, 1965

 Dear Mother,

The letter I wrote to you Sunday returned today together with the letter you wrote to us.

Tomorrow is Relief Society work meeting, and I have much to do to get ready for it.  We are making & decorating sugar Easter eggs.

Blen has this afternoon off, and he & Betty have gone to see the cherry blossoms & have left Julie with me.  She is crawling all over, getting into cupboards & pulling things out.  She will be walking in another week or two.  She will be a year old the 25^th.  They moved to another apartment about 2 miles farther from us.  It has 2 bedrooms.  Julie was waking up often at night, now she sleeps thru.

I talked to Harold on the phone last night & he is going to try to get home this coming Sunday.  If he does, he will be in Salt Lake on Saturday.

I wish I had been in Salt Lake for conference.  It is too bad it costs so much to fly there.  I’ve been wondering if Lou couldn’t stay with David for these last 6 weeks till school is over.  He is still traveling between Provo and Cottonwood to go to work.

I wrote to Helen Sunday & sent a copy of an article on Utah in the Washington Post.  It said that Utah is changing & allowing things to creep in that the church has banned like buying drinks in restaurants & horse racing came before the legislature before the church went into action & killed the bill in the Senate.

We are having lovely weather here.  Mike & I went to the opening game of the Big League baseball.  The Washington Senators against Boston, & Boston won 7 to 2.  It was so warm we didn’t even need sweaters it got up to 81 degrees.  I better get this back in the mail.  

Lovingly Laura

riots

                                                April 9, 1968

Dear Mother,

            Spring is here, and it is so very beautiful.  The trees and flowers are in full bloom, and the whole earth is coming alive.

            The only thing that marrs the beauty of it is the riots in Washington, but there is nothing to be afraid of where we live.  In fact, Harold and I went into Washington on Saturday, the day afer the rioting started, and everything was quiet.  There were burned out and looted stores, but they are in the Negro district, and they are stores owned for the most part by white people.  The Negros fail to realize they are hurting themselves more by rioting.  We went across one of the burned out streets, and just a block away everything was clean and beautiful, with flowers and trees blooming.  The Negro people for the most part were as bewildered as well.  They are wondering what is happening.  The Negro people who had friends living out of Washington came and spent the 2 or 3 days during the riots, in friends homes.

            I must leave for Relief Society.  I have to open the building.  Our janitor is a Negro, and he is taking the day off in memory of Martin Luthor King.  So I must go and open the building.  Dad is the only one who has keys except the Bishopric and the janitor.  I’ll finish when I get home.   [Laura]

            Hello Mother!  This is Harold.  Laura gave me this letter to add a note and mail.  We are all fine.  I believe Laura is feeling better than she has for years.  We enjoy having Dianne here.  We are all very busy at Church work and school.  Don’t worry about the riots.  We are no where near the bad areas.

                                                Love from us all.        Harold.

Work often required travel. The kids would have been the five youngest.

[A letter from Dad from the Bell Hotel  Ephrata, Washington.]

                                                                 April 5, 1965

Dear Laura and Kids,

We arrived in Ephrata at 10:00p.m. (1:00 a.m. Washington time) Vivian Bogart from Denver and Bertha Steel from Sacramento were in the same plane with me from Portland and Ed Arnold the Personnel officer here at Ephrata met us at the airport.  The 6 technicions from the Projects arrived last Thursday Morning and have already put in 4 full days.  Thurs, Fri. Sat & Sunday going over some of the 1300 cases we have to audit.  I understand they reviewed about 700 and put aside over 50 that looked bad for me to check.  It would be wonderful if we could get it done by Thursday so that I could spend Friday in Boise – Sat. in Salt Lake and be home Sunday.  The real important thing however is to get the job done RIGHT (without a single error)

Ephrata is a very dry sage brush town of 6500 population.  They have had no rain or snow since Jan. 1 – The grand Coulee Dam – largest in the world is 60 miles away and Ephrata doesn’t even get a drop of irrigation water from it – We stopped last night at Yakima which does get water for its apples.  Azaleas and cherry blossoms were blooming at Portland.  The trip was fine except just a little rough from Portland because we were in a very small plane – I feel fine. – Its 6:30 a.m. here (9:30 your time) and we have breakfast at seven and to work at 7:45 – Will know better by tonight how things are – I saw what looked like a nice L.D.S. Church – Will check so can go to Priesthood. 
                                                     Love Dad