March 24 & 26, 1944: A couple of letters from Anna to her brothers. On the 25th baby Terry will be 17 months old. With Spring having come, things are kind of quiet in Albany. The weather is “beautiful for a change, clear and sunny and somewhat windy but not very cold. It sure is nice to see the good old sun out and it sure feels like Spring.”
Mama got her false teeth from Dr. Donahue on Central Avenue. As Anna writes, “they look alright but they don’t fit right.” Apparently there is a problem with the lower plate and it will involve a few return visits to get the dentures to sit just right on the gums and “they fit good and she…is satisfied.” For now the uppers feel ok and not like “foreign matter in her mouth.” It will take some getting used to as “the dentist told mama that the first two or three weeks are the worst…”
With the new draft laws going into effect, there is a possibility that Eddie may be drafted “when his deferment runs out and that will be May 3.” Anna is resigned to the idea, writing, “I have become accustomed to seeing no men around …what good will it do to worry about the whole thing because I will only make myself sick. …I guess they need Eddie in the armed forces to finish the war. You fellows are not doing a very good job of it. Just kidding.”
Anna has a new coat for the spring, having bought it “downtown”. It has “rounded lapels” and is “not herring bone or tweed”. It is a solid color “between brown and tan…the new cocoa shade.” Eddie has advised that Anna stock up on clothes now before he is called up. Anna observes that while Eddie has “good intentions, he forgets that women’s styles change” and that after a few years her wardrobe would be “outmoded”.
The baby also got a new coat and hat for the spring too. At first Terry was tentative with the salespeople in the store, but “when we showed her the clothes in the mirror and how she looked in them she was laughing all over the place.” Anna had to shorten the sleeves and tells how “when I put it on her after I had shortened the sleeves she wanted to play in it and didn’t want to take it off… She is just like any other woman – likes new clothes.”
Friends from out of town “Mary and Louise” came to Albany to go shopping and brought one of their daughters “Katie” with them. They stopped by the house for a visit after shopping, and “the fun started when Katie noticed the box with Terry’s toys and the next thing we had the box and all in the parlor and the two of them were digging in the box for toys. Katie didn’t know how to play with some of the ones baby got for Christmas so we asked Terry to show Katie how and boy she went to town. …Well, anyway at the end Terry leaned over into the box to fish out some more toys and she slipped and went in head first and her feet were sticking out. Boys did we laugh, especially Mary. …Anyway, Terry didn’t cry when we pulled her out but laughed. I guess because she saw the whole bunch of us laughing….That kid is a real circus.”
Anna has two more stories to relate about the baby’s latest antics. Rather than copy them verbatim, I’ll let you read them as Anna typed them here:
In an excerpt from her letter of March 26, 1944, Anna relays to her brothers how their 17 month old niece is “helping” her father clean up after a long day at the shop. To view a full sized version, click on the image above. The full sized image will appear in a new browser window. You can then close that tab to return to this post.
…and here:
In another excerpt from her March 26, 1944 letter to her brothers, Anna tells of more antics of their niece. To view a full sized version, click on the image above. The full sized image will appear in a new browser window. You can then close the tab to to return to this post.