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.

This letter is obviously a little different.

The transcript:

Feb. 13, 1931

Station O.E.N. on the air

Operating on a frequency of 10 qts. 5 pts.

Dear Al,

I am having a tough time for kisses for two, for honey stuff don’t work with girls anyway baby.

Sunday Elma and Marie and all were wondering where you were and the tears were plentiful, but they have dried up, but still thinking of you. When I came in the house Sunday night they said I looked lonesome without you. Evansville is the same as usual, dead as a door nail. I worked three days this week. Tonight I am going to sit up at Mesers. I guess you know of the death of Mrs. Meser Thursday morning. I stayed in bed this morning til ten o’clock and am all set for this morning.

Boy that heimgemacht sure am good. Every time I take one I take another one for you, but don’t it taste good so don’t get drunk reading this Al, for it is not intoxicating. So this will be all of my literature for this time, but Elma says vinegar is sour, sugar is sweet Homebrew is good but Al has them all beat.

Signing off with one more quart

Yours truly

Oscar E. Nunning

P.S. Don’t forget to send Elma a bushel of kisses

My comments:

1. So who were Oscar and Marie? As I said before Marie was my grandma’s younger and only sister. In 1932 she would marry Oscar. I am not sure how they met, but Oscar was clearly “one of the family”. While they were dating, Oscar would come over to the Bassmier house every night at 7:00 pm.
2. Oscar’s family was also of German heritage–his grandparent’s were born in Germany. He referred to heimgemacht which directly translated from German means “homemade”. I’m sure that he used that word to refer to some kind of familiar food, but I’m not sure what that was. It is probably similar to my grandma making a yeasted coffee cake and calling it “kuchen”. At one point it was German, but present day Germans would not recognize it.
3. I asked my mother to share what she remembers about Oscar and Marie. She said that Marie was her godmother, but she doesn’t remember a lot. She did remember that Oscar belonged to St. Vincent de Paul Society and he was at church with a hat on. St. Vincent de Paul Society has the Top Hat Ball, but I’m not sure if this was the same thing.
4. My mom shared some pictures of Marie and guess what? My mom looks like Marie!! Go figure. See the pics below. I think that one of them might have been taken on her wedding day. I love these pics because they were taken at my grandma and grandpa’s house–where my mom lives now–and the trees are small.
5. Finally, he mentions Mrs. Meser’s death. The Mesers lived across from the backside of St. Joe Cemetary .

The transcript:

Kokomo, IN

Feb. 12, 1931

Dear Elma,

You don’t know how good I felt this morning when I came home from work and got in my room there was a letter from my best of all friends, my most dearest friend Elma. Really you don’t know how good that made me feel. I didn’t have time to read it before supper because I was a little late coming in tonight and supper was ready when I got in but I felt just so good without eating supper tonight when I seen that letter on my dresser.

            This morning when I got up or even before, while I was lying awake in bed I was thinking about you and thought for myself that I surely ought to get a letter from you today. Elma you don’t know how alive I felt all day until tonight. Elma I was talking to a fellow today he thinks he knows a whole lot once in a while, but I don’t doubt but what he finds out a whole lot of that stuff because he has a pull some way or another I don’t know, but the way he was talking I will most probably go to New Albany before long, if that is then I will be closer to home before long. The way he said it would be over time in March but I don’t know anything about it otherwise and am not going to worry the least, because if I would make some kind of other arrangement it would all be wrong anyway so don’t you worry about it or anything else either. 

            Here is some real news. Something that never has happened before. I bet you wouldn’t guess in a year. Just think I got a hair cut in Kokomo for the first time in my life. Oh my ain’t that something.

            Elma I think Oscar is over to see his sweet baby Marie tonight. He is just about getting there now, It is now five minutes til seven o’clock. Just about time for Oscar to arrive to see Marie and to make you feel blue and me bluest of all to think there they are all together and having a real time quilting and cutting up cracking jokes and all such things and just think your old Al in Kokomo sitting in his room with his pen propped up on the dresser with his stationary box on his lap and a piece of paper on top of this box and writing these very words you are reading now, a letter to the most beloved friend in the world, Elma. 

            Well we were to have school tonight, but we got word this evening that we wouldn’t have school tonight. I thought there is where I will have another chance to write a letter to you Elma and after I get through this letter I might read a little in my specification and then go to bed and sleep a little and dream a while and then get up and mail and kiss this letter goodbye which is Evansville bound after it leaves me to greet you with a hug and kiss from me.

            I wrote Oscar a letter last night. I guess he has got it by now I don’t know but he will let you read it tonight.

            Elma did you know that my dad was 75 years old yesterday Feb. 11 the day you wrote your first letter to me at Kokomo. Elma, it seems to me while I have to keep on writing, but the trouble is you don’t hear me say it and I can’t ask you anything I won’t say. I will close this letter with lots of love and many kisses.

Al

Goobye Elma and sleep good.

My comments

1. It is evident that my grandpa “had it pretty bad”. He was so infatuated with my grandma that he couldn’t wait to get her letter. Remember that he was 30, soon to be 31. He wasn’t a lovesick teenager, although at times he sounds like one.
2. Who were Oscar and Marie? Marie was my grandma’s younger sister. She was 5 years younger than my grandma, so she would have been 20 years old here. She would go on to marry Oscar Nunning a year after my grandparents in 1932. Oscar was born in 1906, so he was the same age as my grandma. Here he was 25. Apparently, Oscar visited Marie every evening at 7 pm, and my grandpa was jealous that he wasn’t there to join in the fun. He felt like he was missing out on everything.
3. He commented about my great grandpa Frank Weinzapfel’s birthday. He woul∂ live to be 90.

Technically Al wrote this letter the day before Elma wrote #4, but I think she wrote that one before she received this one. Does that make sense? Anyway, here is #5.

The transcript:

620 N. Union St.

Kokomo, Ind.

February 10, 1931

Dear Elma

Well Elma here I am back with a few words for I have nothing else to do but sit here in my room and pass my time away somehow, it seems like I have been here for a month or more already but if everything is like the fellows say I won’t be here very long, if I am lucky enough I might get out of Kokomo by the first of March but whether I don’t know all I know is that three fellows out of the gang are going to get transferred by the first of March but I don’t know where they go to, so don’t go to worrying about that I will be home the first day of March. O boy wouldn’t that be great, they also say that this job should be completed by the first of April or so and the use of the Dial is supposed to start the first day of June, so I guess we will have to trust luck and not make assignments and pray a whole lot so we might see each other real soon again, I feel like I couldn’t wait or like I had to see you tonight Elma, but it is too far to see you tonight. So I guess I will be going to bed tonight with a busting head and dream all night about being there to see you and how.

Elma I guess you can read my scribbling I don’t know, like you said whether you are any good on working crossword puzzles, but that is just the way I feel the way the scribbling, scratches and hooks look to you.

Elma tell me something, I haven’t heard you say anything since Sunday morning when I kissed you goodby at the buss station. I am doing all the talking all the time and don’t hear you at all, so if you can’t say anything please Elma write a few words for I feel like I fell off, off a cliff and nobody knows where I fell to, so I am looking for a few words even if it is no letter, just a few words will be enough to tell me that you are still alive down at Evansville.

Well Elma I am catching myself getting too darn homesick I will have to change my subject and try to think and write about something else Elma I don’t know whether you can make heads or tails out of my writing or not if not let me know and I will try and study my letters before I start writing. study it like a German and then preach ha, ha sent that hot.

Well Elma I am getting good at writing and making funny hooks on a piece of paper, I am going to tell you a little something about my room, it is very nice and clean. I have a large bed for two to sleep, but I have no bed partner and haven’t seen any bed partners either, I have a great big dresser in one corner and a wardrobe in another corner and at the foot of my bed is a door to the side into the bathroom, hot and cold water and a gray rug on the floor it looks pretty good, one door leading into the living room and one door to the front porch and one window in the front, it is nice and warm furnace heated and also have a drop light in the center of the ceiling, nice and white lace curtains on the window and door. Oh I guessI will have to draw you a sketch of my room for positive it won’t be anything extra, so here goes, ***** well here it is I guess you see the little grid on top of the W.R. that is where I put it haha laugh a wile.

Well Elma I guess I have spread whole lot of stuff tonight enough to make anybody sick so I guess I will have to close for this time and write you some other time and tell you some more when I feel more like writing again. I don’t mean that I ain’t feeling good, for I am feeling pretty good about as good as can be expected from anyone being away from home, I wrote mom a German letter tonight, Elma you go and see mom sometime I know it will make her feel better and let me know how she is getting along.

It is now about nine O’clock and I will close this letter and go to bed and dream a **** with Love and kisses from Al.

My comments:

1. My first thought was that my grandpa spoke very little in the 25 years that I knew him, so reading this four page letter was both eye-opening and bewildering. I asked my mother if he spoke a lot when she was growing up and she said, no, that he would come inside from cleaning the ditches, run cold water over his wrists and sit down at the table to eat–all without saying a word. I wish I had spoken to him more to learn more about him. I don’t feel like I knew him well at all.
2. It is clear from this letter that my grandpa loved or was smitten by my grandma. I am very thankful for his persistence, because without that I wouldn’t be here. When I read this letter my grandpa’s homesickness was palpable.
3. I have always been curious about the cultural influence of my great great grandparent’s German heritage. Both of my grandparent’s grandparents were born and grew up in Germany and clearly they still clung to that culture, frozen in 1850. I find it interesting that my grandfather refers to his handwriting and tells my grandma to “study it like a German”. Only he can interpret that for us, but my stab at it is that culturally Grandpa perceived Germans as being highly critical and scrutinizing.I guess I know where I got it from ; ) I also found it interesting that my grandpa wrote a German letter, which I can only assume is a letter in German. I had no idea that my grandpa knew German well enough to write it. He did have kind of an accent when he spoke English, but I never thought about where that came from.

Until next time…..

At first I thought, “geez Grandma, write him a letter already”, then I realized that she was waiting to receive his letter so that she had his address. Anyway, here is her first letter. I will comment more once you have a chance to read it.

The transcript:

Evansville, Ind.

Feb 11, 1931

Dear Al

I sure was glad when the mailman came this morning with those letters for I got them both at once, but almost began to think you forgot to write to me, your Dad got one yesterday already.

Al it sure was blue here since you left for me but of course it won’t do to show it, but my that empty feeling. We put up that quilt this week and are working at it now so that helps out during the day. I just took a little time off on the sly. Mom and Mrs. Weinzapfel are at it now.

I’m sure glad you got their safe, but I guess it was tiresome, only wish I could have been with you on the way. Hope there’ll be more pastime there than at Rockport.

Well Al I’ll have to quit and go after Harold, might run over to your mother’s a minute. (their both well).

Be careful with yourself and I’ll try to have more time the next time

Goodbye Al with love and kisses. X

Elma (forgot this at home. I’m at school now)

(and sure have the Blues)

Hello from all the rest

My commentary:

A couple of things…

1. Why were my great grandmothers, Sophie Bassemier (Feldhaus) and Elizabeth Weinzapfel (Soellner) together making a quilt? They weren’t related yet and Weinzapfel’s lived “in town”. My mom thinks they may have been working on the wedding ring quilt, which now 90 years old and resides at my Aunt Delores’ house (she is the oldest). Also, my grandma was 25 years old at this point and she was quilting with her mother and future mother-in-law. Times definitely were different.
2. My grandma said she was “at school”. I figured out that she was picking Harold up from school, the public school one mile up the road. She must have driven, but my mother told me that she NEVER HAD A DRIVER’S LICENSE. Yep that’s right Grandma, I told everyone.

This 3rd letter is a little different. It is from my grandfather to my grandma’s baby brother, Harold. He was born in 1922 so in this letter Harold was 9. !t’s good to have that context, because if not the letter would seem a little awkward and goofy. Harold would go on to serve in WWII and after the war he married Pearl Buente (it was his second marriage–there is a story there) and they had two children. My mom told me the story about one time in the 50’s Harold took her to Indianapolis to see Pat Boone. She said it was amazing.

Dear Harold

This is old Al trying to write to you, broadcasting from the station ACW as you see at the top left corner. Station ACW in Kokomo. It is now a little colder and the temperature for Wednesday is supposed to rise a little but we don’t ask or advice anybody come out in their bathing suit without a shirt and a pants for he might get bud nipped. Haha. Ain’t that hot.

Well Harold I guess I will write you again some other time. Station ACW signing off 

Goodby Harold from your old pal 

Al. 

This letter is the first one that I could find chronologically. It was written by my grandfather right after he made the long trip to Kokomo, Indiana from Evansville, Indiana.

The first letter:

The actual text of the letter:

Elma Bassemier – Evansville, Indiana
Alphons (Al) Weinzapfel
Kokomo, Ind. February 8, 1931
Dear Elma,
I have arrived safely at Kokomo at 4:55 o clock PM Sunday and am feeling about as good as can be expected after such a rumpling all day as I had coming up on the bus. Boy I mean they shake you up plenty, the interurban from Indianapolis wasn’t so bad, and I also made good connections at Indianapolis. I got off the bus and walked across the tracks in the central station and bought my ticket for Kokomo and asked the agent what time the train pulled out, he said, its ready now on the third track, that was 2:55 o clock P.M. and I boarded the car and at 3:00 P.M. it pulled out for Kokomo, boy wasn’t I glad that I didn’t have to wait about three or four hours.
Well Elma when I got here I went around the corner and got me some supper and now I am sitting here in Room No. 12 in the Union Hotel where I will stay tonight, tomorrow I will have me a boarding place if I can find one, which I hope will be a good place to eat and sleep, no bugs, I already looked for bugs in this bed here but I didn’t find any so yet and hope not to find any. Elma, I didn’t tell you yet where and what kind of dinner I had today. Elma I bet I had as good a dinner as you did. It was chicken dinner, down at Orleans, Ind. The bus stopped there 20 minutes for lunch at eleven o clock this morning Elma. I told a lie, it was not like home cooked, it tasted fair but nothing compared to home cooking.
Elma, I guess you are feeling very well by now too which I hope you will remain all the time and take care of your self don’t worry so much, I will take all the care I can for my self too so don’t worry, will write more in the near future, with love and kisses

Al

My notes

This letter was the first of many letters that my grandparents wrote to each other while my grandfather was working in Kokomo, Indiana installing phones. I find it to be revealing that he wrote her name five times within the body of the letter. You can feel how much he missed her.

A few things to note:

1. Kokomo is not that close to Evansville, 225 miles apart. Even today it would take four hours by car to travel that distance. It must have seemed like a vast ocean between them when my grandfather left that Sunday back in 1931.
2. His first night he stayed in the Union Hotel. At the time there were seven hotels in Kokomo. I’m going to guess that my grandfather had never stayed in a hotel. He went on to rent a room somewhere–I’m guessing that we will get the scoop on that in future letters.
3. Dinner and supper are not the same thing. You will notice that he said he ate “dinner” in Orleans. Growing up in the Midwest I reflexively have always called the middle of the day meal “dinner” and the last meal of the day “supper”. In southern Indiana, were I grew up, we always referred to the noonday meal as dinner, but I never knew why. The reason for this goes back to the time when the economy was based on agriculture. Farmers worked a busy work schedule and had little time and meals were typically breakfast and dinner, with dinner being eaten around noontime as a large feast. Supper was always lighter and often leftovers were eaten. (reference) https://tiphero.com/dinner-vs-supper#:~:text=And%20lunch%20is%20what%20you%20eat%20midday.%20So%2C,being%20those%20who%20grew%20up%20in%20rural%20communitie
4. Last thing. in the postscript he mentions writing a letter to Harold. You might be wondering, Who is Harold? Harold was one of my grandma’s younger brothers, along with Ed and Ray. My guess is that my grandpa was friends with Harold. Not that interesting, but helps us build a clearer picture of their lives.

And just one day later…here is his second letter:

The actual text of the letter:

Dear Elma, 

I am still with the living and scribbling again, but not in the Hotel. I am now in my room and new home located at 620 N Union St so if you want to write me a few lines which I am longing for, it will make a little more life, everything seems so dead nothing to do and no plans to go, all forsaken in a little bitty corner of the Great Big World in the Land of Kokomo. Well that is that forget the craziness and use a little common sense. 

Elma we have school on Monday and Thursday nights here so that is the reason I am writing this letter now because we have school and it is about time for me to get started to go there. I don’t know really how far it is, the warehouse I mean I was not there yet, I am but about three blocks from the new Telephone building which is right up here on the corner of Union and Taylor St. It is a bldg about like the one in Evansville the only difference is it is not quite as big. 

Well Elma I didn’t do anything this morning but fool time away, this afternoon I worked with a fellow changing telephones to the Dial, I changed four myself so that wasn’t so bad after all. Elma if I haven’t the blues too much tomorrow night I will try and write you another letter and tell you a little more. I am well and how these few lines will find you the same. 

With love and kisses Al

Goodby Elma

My notes:

I found 620 N. Union, Kokomo, Indiana on Google maps

I was so surprised that he wrote another letter so soon, but I guess he had to tell her where he was. Remember: no cell phones, no texting. I am not even sure that Bassemier’s had a phone yet. Many years later they would have a “party line”.