July 2 & 3 1943. Two letter to Dad from his sister Anna back home in Albany. She starts off by telling Dad that the Walshes (who rent the upstairs apartment of the house) have moved out. Jimmy Walsh was home on furlough and helped with the packing and moving. This calls for a correction to a post made several months ago where I noted the living arrangements were that Anna, Eddie and the baby lived downstairs while mom and pop lived upstairs. This was an assumption based on my recollections in later years when we used to visit Uncle Stanley and his family when they lived on the bottom floor of the house on Southern Boulevard and mom and pop lived upstairs. So to correct the record, the entire family lived downstairs in the home on Orange Street. Now back to the letters.
Anna also relays that the “Bierko boy” is also home on a 30 day furlough. Apparently he was on Guadalcanal with their cousin Eddie. In the letter, Anna relays the story that Bierko relayed about his experience at the front. Rather than summarize that part of the letter I am including the entire paragraph below:
Excerpt from Anna’s letter of July 2, 1943 relaying the experiences of a neighbor who was at Guadalcanal.
While on the subject, Anna also writes that they received a picture of their cousin Eddie (presumably a formal portrait) “with all his medals and whatnot”. The paragraph related to that is below as well.
Paragraph from Ann’s July 3, 1943 letter about a picture of their cousin Eddie Morawski who was awarded the Purple Heart for injuries sustained at Guadalcanal.
Of course, no letter from home would be complete without news about the baby. They had Theresa-Marie to the doctor where she weighed in at 22 ½ pounds. Her teeth are starting to come in (she has two of them so far) and “they look so cute when she smiles and you can see them.” The baby is also able to “stand on her little feet pretty solid” with some assistance like holding on to a chair or the side of the crib and will even “grab hold of whatever gives her a good support and lift herself on her feet so that she stands up.” Anna goes on to comment, “Pretty clever baby. Now we have to watch her pretty closely…since she already found out the tricks of how to get up and sit up.” The baby has yet to figure out walking, but it looks like that day will be coming soon.
In other news from home:
- Anna went to the movies with Eddie and their friend Rita to see Bataan starring Robert Taylor. She says the whole movie was filled with a “creepy horror that just got on my nerves”. It upset her so much that she was not able to sleep after coming home.
- They received another letter from Joe Miller who is in the Navy. She does not detail any of the content of the letter, but does complain that Joe’s handwriting is so bad that “half of the time you cannot tell one letter from the other.”
- Their neighbors the Gecewicz’s are having a Mass said to celebrate their 25th Anniversary.
- Anna Baldowska has joined the WACCS
Lobby Card for the 1943 movie Bataan starring Robert Taylor. This movie is not to be confused with 1945’s Back to Bataan with John Wayne. image credit : www.benitomovieposters.com
