July 8 and 10, 1945. Two more letters from Stanley while he is home on 30 day R&R. On the eighth he is at the house typing a letter while Anna has been taken to the hospital at “about 4 in the morning”. As he is writing the letter there is no word yet on the arrival of the new baby other than the child “might be born today or within the next day or so.” For now it seems that Stanley has his hands full with Terry. “She insists on helping me to type this letter in the worst way. First she insisted on pressing the tabulator key and also the shift key. Whenever I get to the end of the line on the paper she returns and spaces once so the carriage is all ready for me to start typing again.”
As Stanley continues, we find that Terry remains confused as to who is home doing the typing, “Terry still insists that I am Uncle Anthony! See what you have done? I’ll have to do a lot of explaining to her and I do hope that I can convince her that I am Uncle Stanley.”
On the 10th, the news breaks that “the baby was born…at about 1130AM today…it was another girl. …Tonight we all hope to go to the hospital and see Anne and the baby….it seems as if everything worked out okay. You were home when Terry was baptized and here I am when the next baby was born. Looks as if I will be Godfather. Anne did want me so much to be even when I was in England and at last here I am home for a while. Her wishes came true.”
Stanley is at the typewriter again, and Terry is right there with him “Pestering me all over again.” While Terry was “helping” Stanley he let her type a message to Dad. Let’s go back to 1945 and see what it is:
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Stanley continues, writing that “Terry is pretty smart and you have to watch her… She likes to pull some fast ones. The other day I was in the yard and the gate was open …I was playing with her and then she says, ‘You stay there and I’ll be back in one minute.” …So I knew she was up to something. Then I decided to follow her. First she looked… to see if I was watching her. Before I knew it she was running half way down the alley towards the gate. She tried to go on the street. Boy does she just get into trouble.”
In other news, even though the war is over in Europe, Eddie was called in by the draft board for another physical. He went to the Armory where “he knew some sergeant down there so they pushed him through the physical and now he is classified… 2A(L). …He won’t go into the army unless they reclassify him further.” For those unfamiliar with the draft classifications, 2A(L) means that you are fit for limited service but are granted a deferment in support of national health, safety, or other interest.
Before wrapping up, Stanley writes about the family’s garden. “Mom has about twelve sprouts of cabbage growing in the yard. Mom is also growing onions, tomatoes, carrots and beets. It is a small victory garden.” He also contrasts Albany with England, “Here …you see a lot of little kids…You very seldom see a man walking around. They sure cleaned Albany out of manpower. Boy what a difference there is between England and USA. Over there you walked around in pitch blackness all the time. It sure feels good to walk around the streets which are well lighted. We did not have too much of restrictions as we were pretty far from the front, I can imagine you have pretty strict blackout regulations.”
He closes, “I guess I’m all out of words for the time being but will give you more news later from the home front.”