October 5th and 7th, 1943. Two letters from Anna to her brothers. There is a sense of acceptance back in Albany to the news that Stanley is being sent overseas. Anna writes to him, “Well, we are keeping our fingers crossed and many times through the day I breathe a silent prayer for you. We are just as close to you now, even closer than we ever were in civilian life. I am wishing you a safe and happy landing. If we don’t hear from you for the next few weeks we will know what to expect. …I am at a loss for words today because I don’t seem to be in the mood for letter writing – we have too much to think about and all mama and I can do is keep on thinking.”
Anna writes that the change in seasons has come to Albany. “The leaves are falling from the trees like snow. …This morning it was very cold and the milkman when he came this morning told mama that everything was covered up with frost and it looked like it was snowing. Pretty soon it will be snowing and it won’t disappear when the sun comes up.”
With baby Theresa’s birthday coming up, Anna says that Eddie’s parents were planning on buying her a playpen “if they can find one”. Anna mentions that a friend in Rennsselear wanted to buy a playpen for their child and the store wanted $18. By way of comparison, that is the equivalent of $250 in 2015 dollars.
In other news, Eddie got his doe license and is “tickled pink about it”. Eddie is planning to take two days off to go hunting when deer season opens. Anna writes, “I don’t care if he goes hunting and then if he does catch something we will have meat and not just barely survive on ration points. …People don’t eat more than they need so I don’t see why the heck they ration food. If nobody spread any rumors about shortages life would just go on as before and they wouldn’t ration anything and get everybody mad. Everything is so complicated that you don’t know whether you are coming or going…”
They took the baby to the doctor for another diphtheria shot. As one might expect, the baby was not too thrilled with the events of the day. “Boy did she yell. She kept on turning around and looking at him to see if he was the one who did it…but the doctor looked so innocent. When mama sat down in the chair again to dress her up she thought that she was going to get stuck again and started to yell again. When we were going out the doctor said good-bye to her and Terry wouldn’t even look at him but was hurrying to get out of the office.”
In related news, the doctor gave them the go ahead to move the baby from formula to regular milk. Anna says it doesn’t make much difference because “milk is milk and she just hates it… She loves cereals and soups and vegetables and fruits.” But when the baby is done eating she has a none too subtle way of showing it. “…she has learned to blow food out of her mouth and usually when she gets pretty well filled up on her meal she starts doing that and splatters me all up.”