473 3/29/1943 Helen Carlson to Sadie Erwin

Helen Carlson 401 Alexander, Monroe, Louisiana Monday, March 29, 1943

Sadie Erwin 1120 Cole St., Enumclaw, Washington

Dear Folks, Your nice letter just came and I am going to hurry and write a few lines because I am going downtown this afternoon and see Jane Tourek as she is in the hospital with a new baby. Mary, the colored woman, is here today, I mean Annie. This is a new one and she does all the washing and everything, including cooking but I won’t keep her all day so she won’t have to do any cooking. I hope Jimmie has heard from us by now. I will send his letters in my next letter but want to read them over more times now because they just came. I hope he makes good and I hope he will be able to apply for officer’s training but I have heard they don’t want any more officers because they have so many now but maybe that isn’t true. Elmer had a card from his draft board today and they said he was still in 3-A and would be until they were told to draft men with one child. I was hoping he would be put into 3-B which is married men in essential war effort. Say I still have four boxes of tea to send you and had forgotten all about it because I have the tea in my cupboard and just noticed it the other day and remembered then that I hadn’t sent it but I will soon. We have been without butter all week and I am so glad I can buy it today. I am going to buy butter today as a treat because I stocked up on extra meat for this week so shouldn’t have to buy any but then after this week I am going to buy nucoa since it is three points less. I am making good progress on my dress and haven’t been doing as much letter writing as I should because am so anxious to finish it. I remember your saying if you only had the time you could make us so many dresses and I know just how you felt because if I could just sit down and sew all day I could make clothes in a hurry but I don’t get to do much during the day at all and the evenings are so short that it kind of drags the sewing out. Yesterday we went out to see Phillips since they are being transferred to Lake Charles. I think that is probably where we will be sent when we leave but this job here can’t be finished until November because they can’t get all the necessary materials until then so I hope we stay right here but Elmer said he doesn’t think there would be enough for him to do all that time. Mrs. Dean who lives upstairs is from Texas and her folks are always sending her Texas grapefruit and oranges and she always brings me down a whole bunch of them. She just brought me down over two dozen delicious oranges. By the way Delicious apples cost one dollar a dozen here. Isn’t that simply terrible? How much do they cost there. Well Folks I will answer your letter tonight and I hope Glad is getting along fine. I am going to get the present this afternoon and will write to Glad right away too. Must stop for now and get ready to go to the store. Am also buying Jim a box of candy today to send to him as the drugstore got in some new boxes. I planned on sending it to you but then decided you would probably rather have me send it to Jim and the next time he gets some candy in I am going to send you a box. More later. Love, Helen