Tag Archives: Found items

Letter from Dad to his parents: September 1948

Things, , , , ,

In the box that probably belonged to my Uncle Don and Aunt Leila were some letters Dad wrote to his parents and to my aunt and uncle. Here is one to his parents. He was twenty and a half years old.

9-6-48
Great Lakes, Ill

Dear Folks,

Well, how is everybody? I’m feeling pretty good except for a slight cold which is getting better. Well our chow is a little better this week because a different company is feeding us. The company that is feeding us now has made an agreement with our C.O. that they feed us good and we feed them good when we get in chow hall. Our weekend is just about over, it’s Mon. night now and we have just finished swabbing the decks with sand, washed all the windows inside and out with Bon-ami and scrubbed every piece of wood in the building. I got all my clothes washed yesterday and left them out all day to bleach.

How is everybody at home? Is dad feeling pretty good, I hope so. I hope everybody else is pretty good too.

Say when you send my camera will you send back my toiletry kit and a good map of Illinois, Indiana or any other state you have. Send on of Chicago too if you can find one.

I’ll have to quit now because they are going to turn out the light.

Goodbye for now.

Love,
Al

P.S. Don’t forget to write

I still live at the same place, ha! ha!

My Wants by Elvin, age 7

People,

One of the attic kneewall finds was a box that probably came from my Aunt Leila and Uncle Don’s house. In that box, in an envelope marked Portrait Reorder Division was, among other things, a piece of paper with “To Elvin” written on one side and the following poem written in nearly completely faded purple ink on the other side. At first I thought it was simply an old mimeographed copy of something and nearly threw it away, but when I took a closer look I saw that it was a handwritten poem, signed by Elvin — my dad.

My Wants

Elvin, age 7

I always want more than I can tell
And other folks just want a smell.
I always want things for my bike
But I don’t always get what I like.

When I ever go into the store
I want those things more and more.
I want something that’ll make a noise
But of course you know I’m like most boys.

I like to make airplanes you know
I rather do that than play in the snow.
But if that would make me real happy
I don’t think I’d have time to help my pappy.

Here is the actual poem with the contrast turned up a bit so some of the writing is legible.

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Squeeze Coin Purse

Memories, People,

Not much reminds me of my dad more than a squeeze coin purse. He carried one in his pocket at all times, packed full of change. The points where you squeezed the purse were usually darker than the rest of the purse from the motor oil that stained his fingers for most of his life. I remember him pulling the purse out of his front pant pocket, squeezing it between his thumb and middle finger and giving it a shake while holding it out for me to choose a coin. I remember the smell of the purse, a combination of copper from the pennies warmed from the heat of his pant pocket, plastic and oil. I remember the sound of the coins hitting each other.

Among the things I found in my Mom’s attic was an old, barely used squeeze coin purse. It was not one of dads, or maybe it was a spare. It is stiff and slightly cracked — probably because it was exposed to heat and cold in the kneewall, but also because it has to be at close to 40 years old. I know this because on the back is an advertisement for the B&B Tavern in Chetek, Wisconsin and my folks stopped going to Chetek for vacations in the mid-1970s when they bought their own property on the other side of the state.

This will be another of the growing pile of useless items the kids will need to deal with when I’m gone because tossing this would be like tossing out a warm memory of my dad, and we can’t have that!