480 4/15/1943 Helen Carlson to Sadie Erwin

Helen Carlson 401 Alexander, Monroe, Louisiana Thursday, April 15, 1943

Sadie Erwin 1120 Cole St., Enumclaw, Washington

Dear Folks, I’m going to hurry and write to you so I can give this to the mailman to mail. Annie is coming this morning and so I don’t have so much to do. I had a letter from Jim the other day and he has never gotten his box of candy I sent but has received everything else and I sent the candy first. I sure hope he gets it. Yesterday we bought a new tire and it cost twenty dollars and isn’t even a good one. It is made out of this new kind of rubber and won’t last nearly as long as the old kind. Elmer wants to quit driving to work and may if he can get a ride with someone else. I just finished my second dress last night and will be glad when my machine is gone so I will get more letters written. I also got some sheets hemmed up that I had torn in half for Jimmie’s bed. I certainly would like to own a sewing machine but it will never be a Singer if I do because they really are expensive and other models that aren’t so well known are just as good and don’t cost nearly as much. Has Cully found work yet. I hope I get a letter from you today but I bet you are kept plenty busy all the time. Esther Dean has gone to Houston so I had her husband Olney down for supper last night and then he and Elmer went bowling. I hadn’t planned to have him for supper but then decided to the last minute and was glad I did it that way because then I didn’t have to wonder what to have to eat. We just had beans and fried potatoes and I’m going to have him down again for a little better meal later on. I have tried all over town to buy frames and no place has any except very expensive gold ones and they are even almost gone but I don’t want to spend from 2.50 to five dollars for a frame. I am going to send the pictures anyway and maybe you can take some old picture out of the frame for a while and use it. That is what I had to do for our picture. I put Jimmie in our wedding picture frame. The pictures didn’t come in any kind of a folder. Jim hasn’t sent me a picture yet but if he does I will send this one back. I think it is real good of him. He has put on more weight though since I saw him but I didn’t tell him that because he looks awfully nice to be worried about his weight. Last Sunday Elmer went fishing and came home with four little tiny ones. They were really too tiny to eat but I fried them and we had a taste and then the man across the hall came over and gave us four nice big ones so we had a fish supper after all. Jimmie is almost a year old and takes a step or two every once in a while but still isn’t anxious to walk. Yesterday he slept over two hours in the afternoon and I think that is the longest nap he has ever taken and he probably would have slept longer but the telephone woke him up. Whenever I put him to bed either at night or during the day he wakes up in twenty minutes on the dot almost to go to the toilet and then he goes back to sleep. Even if he has gone just before I put him to bed he wakes up like that. I bought him four pairs of training pants yesterday so have five altogether and will be so glad when he stops wearing diapers. I haven’t had a dirty one in ages though. Well Folks, the mailman comes early so I am going to hurry and get this out in the box. Annie hasn’t showed up yet so I’m beginning to wonder if she is coming. I was just thinking about firing her anyway but if she doesn’t show up she is absolutely the last Negro that will ever get in my house no matter how good they are supposed to be. Goodbye for this time folks, and I’ll write more later. Love, Helen Here comes Annie now.