September 28 and October 2, 1943. Two letters to the boys from their sister Anna back home in Albany. Anna writes “The average everyday life seems to run in the same monotonous day in and day out routine and much doesn’t happen in this big town like ours.” Nonetheless, she writes four pages worth of news from the home front, including the fact that the baby is sleeping through the night. “Terinia now doesn’t take her ten o’clock bottle anymore. …after having her supper at six o’clock she sleeps the night through until six the next morning.”
Anna also writes about a few things that have come their way as a result of Eddie’s work. Her husband, Eddie is the Service Manager at Trojan Pontiac and he has had a few of his customers treat him nicely. In one instance, a fruit peddler gave Eddie a dozen bananas as a tip for fixing his car. As Anna writes “that’s something nowadays because bananas are as scarce now as jewels and when you can get them in the store they are 6 cents a piece.” That would be about eighty three cents in 2015 money.
In another instance, Anna’s raccoon coat needed some repairs. They expected the work to cost them about $50 to $60. Fortunately, a local furrier whom Eddie knows did the work for $25 “the cost of labor and furs and no profit for himself. …Eddie says from now on he will also give him all the possible best breaks on his car when he brings it to the shop.”
Eddie also bought a rifle from a fellow that he works with for $20.00. He bought it from a fellow who “is single and 35 and they won’t defer him for that reason because he is single and has to go into the army and Eddie bought the gun from him.”
Anna also writes that they “received a long letter from Billy” (Eddie’s brother) “and he is somewhere in S. Carolina…. He mentioned that you boys are going ahead in advancements quicker than he because he is still a PFC. I don’t know whether he is jealous or not but I am proud of you boys….Billy is also expected home this coming week and I bet he can hardly wait to get here.”
Anna tells Stanley that they received the plexiglass cross that he fashioned from the nosecone of a B-17 that crashed on the base where he is stationed. She comments “The cross looks very nice and it doesn’t look like it was [hand] made at all. I fact when I first saw it I thought that you had bought and were sending it home. …Mama just hung the…cross and chain by the picture of the Blessed Mother and you can be sure that she will guard and protect you.”
In other news from Albany, Anna writes:
- “Helen Reiboud who went to St. Joseph’s with us…died last Thursday…it seemed so strange that she should be dead because I can remember when she went to school with us she was always on the go and always jumping around.”
- “Augie Weiss and his wife had another baby. It is another boy and he was born on the 25th of September.”
- “…Mary Rourke got married—about a month ago. She married secretly and without any announcements… She knew him since the fourth year of high school and that was in 1937 and mama worried when I went with Eddie for a year.”