Elma and Al

August 19 is Harold’s birthday!

First is Elma’s letter, then Harold’s:

Evansville, IN

Feb. 17, 1931

Dear Al,

            I sure didn’t have to tell Harold twice that you were waiting for a letter from him he got busy right now and never left very much for me to tell either but if you get half the laugh that we all did when I had to read it out loud it sure will be well worth his trying so hard to make a good job. I sure felt lots better this morning when I got two letters than I did yesterday morning when I found the mailbox empty. He must carry them over sometimes. If I would have got that special before I wrote last night I’d thought it caused me to feel so blue. But somehow or other the more I read it the letter I feel to know that you were honest enough to tell me just how you felt. We’ll stick it through this time Al but if you get to come back home and they send you that far away again I don’t think I’ll let you go by yourself. Then I guess we’ll get homesick together.

            Your mother was feeling and looking fine we were there about an hour. Al they had your letter laying on the table and they sure appreciate it. Your dad couldn’t wait until he got to tell me he was so proud of it. They were only wishing it was longer. Try and write more to them it does them so much good. They paid the telephone bill the day after they got it. Have you got the rest or will they get that back?

            That quilt sure is pretty Al and I only wish you could have seen it when I held it up and thought you had to be looking at it. Glad it’s done so I can get at something else.

            Well tomorrow Lent starts going to church will be a little pastime. Hope you get to go for we both have enough to pray for.

            Al I wish I could keep on writing but as you said when you don’t know German its pretty hard to keep talking and I’m going to try and get more sleep tonight so I’ll make it short and sweet.

            Love and kisses goodnight Al

            -Elma

            P.S. Oscar is hauling blocks to Rockport and if you were still there you would have had company again for we’d sure been there by this time.

Evansville, IN

Feb. 17, 1931

Dear Al,

            I just thought of you when I was playing and I thought I would send you a letter so I will tell you what I know about some things. First, we was at your house today after school your father said that the bill had come for the telephone and that he had paid it already and that did not say anything about it. And your mother was making some shirts for your father and she thought I was hungry so she gave me a piece of jelly bread and I ate it so quick that she gave me another piece of jelly bread and she filled my book satchal with all kinds of good nuts she was so nice and good to us and we could hardly get away when I came home I found out that Elma had her quilt done that is all but binded and started to line it when she had found that Aunt Josephine had been sewing with the machine and she does not know much about the sewing machine and she had the bobbin halfway in and she blunted the needle and Henry was here with his sharpener and he sharpened the needles so now she is binding it.

            Well Al, my hair are getting long so with the next letter send a haircut so I can put it on my head, ha! Ha! Isn’t that funny? And Elma said I should tell you that Oscar and Marie are sit on the davenport and she wishes you were here too so you could see what she is doing. Pheen said I should tell you she is still a toothless line and Aunt Katy said I should tell you to let her know when you are coming so she could make a peach pie for you, ha! Ha! Aint that hot and said he should let them know if he wants his gravy hot or cold. Mr. Lintzenich was buried today he had a big funeral. That’s Mr. Pete Lintzenich, and he had a big funeral.

            Mother, Zachery, Henry and Ray are playing cards together. Elma believes that she will use the towel prints as the mark of ***.Marie said she will not write you a letter because you owe her a letter she said gents go first. Daddy went and bought six pigs for four dollars and one pig without a tail which cost three dollars so altogether there were seven pigs. The seven pigs cost all together twenty seven dollars. I want to ask a foolish question, we have dollar day down here, have you dollar day up there? If you’re not dead from holding your breath you will be dead from age by the time you are through reading this letter.

            We had a little rain and were in hopes to get more this weather is warm down here, how is it up there? Marie said I should say hello for her. Henry is going home and he said he was going to Florida.

Oscar is now sitting out in the kitchen with Marie. Now that Henry has gone home Elma is sitting in his place holding his hand of cards.

They are all sleepy Indiana *** oversuit suet sleeping.

Your loving friend,

Harold

It’s Valentine’s Day and it’s a long one.

The transcript:

Kokomo, IN

Feb. 14, 1931

I just reread your letter this dinner when I came home. As you know we don’t work on Saturday afternoon. I read your letter twice this dinner and just got done reading it the third time for Elma you know I love to hear from you and I can’t keep from thinking about you and home all the time. Every time I hear from you it puts a new spirit in my feelings and makes me feel like I could stand it a little bit longer again, so whenever you have a chance I will appreciate it very much every time you drop me a few lines even if it is only “Hello and Goodbye” the idea of getting the piece of paper you wrote on and to think this piece of paper Elma sent to me and sealed it with a sweet kiss before she mailed it at Evansville.

            Well Elma I was surely surprised to see that paper clipping that you sent me. I was like you said, seeing is believing. Johnny sure has my sympathy. I sure feel sorry for John the shape he is left in. Elma, next time you see John give him my wishes, I am just sorry I couldn’t be there at the time of the funeral, well I guess she was well taken care of before she died, so she is better off this way, she is out of the troubles and misery of this world.

            Elma I guess the next time I will get to see you, you will have a lot of pretty things for you and me, to show me about you Elma? Getting that pretty quilt done and a few more things, but don’t get foolish and stay up day and night to do these things. I would rather you wouldn’t make so much and get your regular and more rest, and if it has to be when you take time to write to me, rest yourself and write some other time. I will overlook it once in a while not to get so many letters. I guess I will look over this spell too.

            Elma you asked whether I am in a private home, I thought I mentioned in a letter before already but if I didn’t I meant to tell you that I was in a private home and the people are very nice they try to please you every way. I never did ask them whether they have any more children than the one boy here at home. I guess these people are about fifty years or more old. The old lady bakes pies for restaurants and lunch rooms. I guess she bakes on average about 20 or more pies a day now. She told me that when times were good she used to bake as many as 90 pies a day. I get pretty good eating, She also has two other men that come in for breakfast, dinner, and supper but stay some other place. The one of the two men has been taking his meals here with these people for about eight years.

            I think the old mans name here is John Buente. He can talk a little German, he is also a German descent the way he said. Every evening when we eat supper they turn the radio on and set it on for Amos and Andy from Cincinatti. The other two fellows generally stay til Amos and Andy are through with their broadcast then they leave here and I generally go to my room and write you a letter or one to mom.

            Elma this has been an awful long afternoon. After I ate dinner I read your letter and a letter I got from mom and then a letter I got from a member of the Foresters from Indianapolis and then I taken a good bath from head to foot, put on clean underwear and dressed up and went to church and cleaned up and taken a good bath by going to confession. Boy they make it plenty short here they don’t even say anything after you are through. The priest says you are sorry for your sins and then he says pray to our father and to hail mary and sends you off, boy he hears them in a hurry. The name of the church is St. Patrick’s It is about five or six blocks I have to go to church and I think I will go to 6:30 o’clock mass in the morning to go to communion.

            Well after I went to confession this afternoon I went to the post office and got me a dollar worth of stamps so I can write some more letters and send them to my sweet baby Elma, aint that hot. Then after I had the stamps I came home and read a little in the Kokomo paper. I don’t thin they will have a Sunday paper because they had a funny paper with the paper tonight. I believe it is the same funny sheet the press of Evansville had last Sunday. It is the same features as the Evansville press, Major Harold, High Pressure and I forget what the other is now.

            Elma I guess you think I am crazy or something is wrong with him, writing all such junk and so often but as you know that is about the only way I have to pass my time, to read and write and while I am writing now I am also listening to the radio. Out in the other room it is been going since I came back from church. The old lady told me it sounds like there could be something wrong with the radio it was awfully noisy all the time so I just looked at it a little bit and checked the wiring and found that the aerial was hooked on the ground and ground on the aerial. When I changed the wires it sounded very good and she was well pleased so it is still going now.

            Well Elma today you missed getting your Valentine from me, as you generally get a box of candy and a sweet kiss but this time you didn’t even get a scratch on a piece of paper from me but Elma you will have to overlook it this time for I had the blues so darn bad once in a while this week that I didn’t know should I go farther or stay so I guess I stuck it out pretty well if it don’t get any worse this week.

            Elma I thought I would write this letter tonight so it gets on the road tonight and tomorrow night Marie will have company and you will most probably have the blue and Monday I guess you will get this letter and that will help you over your blues a little more and if nothing happens I will write another letter or might write only a few lines so you will get them Tuesday then you will be ahead of Marie you will get the letter about noon and Oscar will first come about 7:00 pm Tuesday evening to see Marie. Elma I will also send you all the true love and countless kisses in each letter more than Marie gets from Oscar Ha Ha that is another one. Elma tell Pa that I paid the telephone bill for February before I left home $1.38 and .50 total $1.88 so they won’t have to worry about it. The bill was sent in yet from so they made record of it at the office. Best wishes to your dad and mother and all the rest.

            Elma I will close the few lines with the wishes of all the good luck in the world to you this letter bearing me in the best of spirit and hope it will find you the same, so good night Elma with a hug and lots of kisses.

Good night Sleep good Elma -from Al

My comments:

There is so much here. I’ll go in chronological order with the letter.

1. Once again, dinner is not dinner in the midwest. My aide, who does most of the transcribing, was bewildered about the dinner/supper thing. I cleared that up for her.
2. I really held on to this letter, and you may be wondering why. Well, the death of Mrs. Meser really shook me up–even more so, because I figured out a couple of things that no one else who is alive right now knew or could remember. First of all, she was only 40 in 1931 when she died and she had five kids. That’s enough to make anyone’s head turn. Then I found her death certificate, pictured below:

https://www.ancestry.com/sharing/29915861?h=525ffb

Let me know when you notice it…yep…that’s right. She died of eclampsia and puerperal fever. Again, you might be wondering what are those and how did she get it???? I thought the same thing, but I recognized the word eclampsia and remembered preeclampsia so I headed over to Dr. Google. Eclampsia is what preeclampsia turns into if not treated. It presents as severe high blood pressure AFTER a baby is delivered and it is fatal. Purpueral fever results from a Streptococcus A infection and today would be treated with antibiotics, but 90 years ago women died after childbirth. So…was Christine pregnant? Did she have a stillbirth? Either way I couldn’t find any records of either. If anyone here knows the story, please share. Her death must have been quite tragic, leaving five children ages 17, 13, 11, 6, and 2. John Meser never remarried and died in 1953 at a fairly young age. Their youngest was Paul, two at the time of her death, and he died at 29 from cirrhosis of the liver. I found her picture, below. I think you will agree–she was beautiful.

It makes me sad to look at her.

As it turns out, we are related to the Mesers as well. And no one knew that either. So here it goes. My 3rd great grandfathe, Caspar Bassemier, on my Grandma Elma’s side, married Anna Kron in Germany. They had three children: Elizabeth, John and Nick. Elizabeth married Valentine Gauer. They had several children, one of whom was named Anna. Anna Gauer married Fred Meser. One of their sons was John F. Meser and he marrried Christina Reis. On the other side, John Bassemier was my 2nd great grandfather and he married Christina Behme and they had four children: Nick, Cecilia, Kate and Josephine. Nick was Elma’s father and my great grandfather.

3. The quilt that Al is referring to has to be the wedding ring quilt which makes me wonder if they were already engaged. Hmm…I need to do some research.

4. I didn’t do any research on the home Al is living in. I do find it curious that the old woman went from making 90 to 20 pies a day. I was reminded that the Great Depression started in late 1930. Grandpa was probably happy to have a job. Along these same lines I couldn’t believe the Bassemier’s phone bill was so inexpensive.

I would write more, but I think that’s all for today.