508 7/4/1943 Helen Carlson to Sadie Erwin

Helen Carlson 401 Alexander, Monroe, Louisiana Sunday, July 04, 1943

Sadie Erwin Nortonia Hotel, Portland, Oregon

Dear Mom, You will soon be on your way home again and I hope you will get a seat all the way on the bus. Saturday I went up to the Reading Room to get my Quarterly and I told the lady at the desk there about your being in Portland taking class from Paul S. Seeley. She thinks he is wonderful too. She said it would be just like him to move back to Boston sometime and then you would have such a long way to go to those annual conventions and I told her I knew that would be alright with you because you would like to go there anyway. Some day I wish we could go there together. I just loved it there and I miss our place on the Island so much. It was really ideal there and I know you would be crazy about it too. I’ll have to take Jimmie there some day and show him his birthplace. The other night the lady upstairs brought me down two frogs. They were already skinned but didn’t look very appetizing. She showed me how to cut the legs off and fry them and they were really delicious. Elmer would have liked them if he hadn’t seen them first but that kind of spoiled the taste for him. Lots of people here go out frog spearing. They go after dark with a flash light and long sticks with a clamp on the end of it. These frogs we had were really big and I never knew before they got so big. The bugs are thick out here on the porch tonight because we have the light on so I think I’ll go inside when I finish writing. Saturday I went to the beauty shop and this operator is closing her shop and I was her last customer so she gave me a bunch of bobbie pins and a little steel curler. I sure was glad to get them because Annie seemed to keep me cleaned out of bobbie pins. I think she took all kinds of things and the lady across the hall thinks she stole from her too. I’m glad she doesn’t work for me anymore. Well Mom I guess I’ll stop for now and go to bed pretty soon. Today is the Fourth of July but hasn’t seemed like it. I hope you’re getting along fine and I’ll write more later. Goodnight. Love, Helen I had a letter from Pop Saturday. He wrote it up at the cabin and said he was getting along fine but missed you.