198 12/28/1948 Helen Carlson to Sadie Erwin

Helen Carlson 4008 Randall Avenue, St. Louis Park, Minneapolis 16, Minnesota Tuesday, December 28, 1948

Sadie Erwin Box 44, Enumclaw, Washington

Dear Folks: It certainly was wonderful hearing all your voices Christmas Night. I wish I could have been with you all. I felt sad after hanging up but I did a lot better than Doris did. She had her call through to New Hampshire and hers came before mine did and she bawled practically the whole time. When I hung up everyone cheered and said I did pretty good so Doris and I consoled each other. We both say we are going home next summer if we have to walk but it is too bad we go just opposite ways. We did have a very nice Christmas, however, and I am so glad we spent part of it with the Ducrets because they are just wonderful. They came over with presents for all of us and are so much fun and they just love the piano and violin. Whenever they come over Doris heads right for the piano and George always says, "Give me your fiddle, Elmer." They really are good too. Doris taught piano in school years ago and George can really play the violin. We had an awfully good dinner and my turkey turned out just wonderfully. It was only the second one I had ever fixed but now I won't worry about fixing another one. Christmas Eve we stayed home doing just what we wanted to do. Elmer's brother Bob surprised us with a visit. I went to the door and was very surprised to see him standing there. I pushed the door open and he came in and I called Elmer. Elmer came in the room but neither one of us acted very cordial. Bob talked to the kids until I took them to bed and then he sat down and told Elmer about school, etc. but neither Elmer nor I added a thing to the conversation and in a few minutes Bob left but he turned to me and said he especially wished me a Merry Christmas. We don't know if his visit was a peace offering or what but we still say we will have nothing to do with them before getting a great big apology and even then we could never be on friendly terms with Dolores. Your Christmas presents were just wonderful and the Monopoly game is going all the time. Jimmy just loves it and plays it all day with Nellie's kids. We all played it Sunday and it is so much fun that I am anxious to have Mabel and Charlie and the Ducrets over to play. Eden and Wally would like it too. It is a wonderful game to teach Jimmy about making change, etc. and he is catching on to it awfully fast. Mary wants me to play India with her all the time so I've been playing a game before bed every night and she usually gets someone to play with her during the day. They are both wonderful games and the first really good games the kids have had. The slip you sent me is the only long one I own so I am delighted with both it and the powder. I'm always buying these little tiny boxes of powder so am so glad to have a big box and the shade is just what I like. Elmer likes his shirt and wore it to work yesterday and today. I bought him one shirt too and tomorrow is his birthday so think I will go up to Lake and Hennepin and get him another one. Thanks very, very much for everything. You always send such nice things and every one of you spent too much on us. That was too bad Ruth sent the wrong package. Not for our sake but hers. I hope she has gotten the trousers back by now. They are lovely trousers and I bet they look swell on Jim. I could tell by the waist line that he isn't fading away. Jim and all of you sound so natural and I could hear you perfectly. Now I can't think of a thing I said and after I hung up I said I couldn't possibly have even used up three minutes but George said it was five minutes. It was nice hearing the kids too. I wish I had thought to put Jimmy and Mary on at least as they would loved to have said hello. Pop, you especially sounded as though I had just talked to you yesterday. It was too bad Gladys and Ruth were out. They probably came back as soon as we hung up. I placed my call at noon here as I knew it would take several hours. I had hoped to get you about three o'clock your time because I was sure you would be all there then but as it turned out it was o.k. anyway, except for Gladys and Ruth. Yesterday I took Jimmy and Mary over to Bryant Square to ice skate. They are just learning and the funniest thing happened. I was out on the ice with Jimmy holding him up and a little boy came over and I learned later he was a fifth grader, but anyway he said, "shall I help you teach your little boy how to skate?" and I said that would be very nice so he gave Jimmy all this advice how to hold his feet and just exactly everything he should do in order to be a good skater. Then after his little pep talk he said, "now let's see if we can make it over to that bench." So away they started and the little fifth grader fell down all the way over to the bench. We sat down and I told him he was doing pretty good and asked him how long he had been skating and he said oh, he had never been on skates before and was just trying to learn, but his uncle, who was a hockey player, told him just how to do it. I suppose he was anxious to pass on all the skating tips to some other new beginner. Carlson's are moving into their new house tomorrow. Florence's husband has been working over there and he stopped over here yesterday morning and told me that Carlson is thinking of buying the three lots between our house and his and building houses on them so he said we'll probably be having Bob and Dolores for neighbors too. Bob has three years of school, no, two years of school left so I don't think he could possibly start paying on a house and besides I don't think he would want to live in the row anyway. I'm anxious to see how Grandma Carlson is going to make out in her new house. It is still pretty rugged over there and I'll bet that once they are moved in old Carlson won't hurry to fix things up. Of course he does have a lot of jobs and he won't have much time to work on his house but it still won't be very nice for Grandma. I don't know what she will do with herself. They won't have a telephone for some time yet and she spends half her day on the telephone. Here, too, she can't walk to any stores and that's another way she occupies herself in town is going up to Lake and Hennepin all the time. Oh well, we'll see how it turns out. New Year's Eve we are invited to a party over at the house of one of the men from the office. The alcoholic, whose name is Gregg, is off again on one of his binges. He was up at work this morning trying to get money from the fellows. None of them would give him any but then he went over to the other fellow who is in the same situation and he gave him enough money to buy a bottle but told him to take the bottle up to his room and drink it. Gregg said oh he couldn't drink that way. He said he had to drink like a gentleman and he needed at least 50 dollars so he could go to a bar and buy other fellows drinks. Elmer said they would have to let Gregg go because they can't depend on him at all and it is getting so that he is gone from the office more than he is there. Tomorrow night we are having the Recrofts over for bridge so I am glad to have the new plastic cards Jim and Ruth sent to Elmer to play with. Just before Christmas we played cards and I thought then I must buy new cards soon and then Ruth and Jim sent such nice ones. I also will use my nice new lunch cloth and napkins the kids sent me for my company tomorrow night. That is something I certainly do need and it is such a pretty one. Yesterday I had to buy a new battery for the car. It wouldn't start Christmas Day so we didn't think we could take Ducrets home that night but Nellie and Pearce stopped over in the evening and insisted that we use their car when Ducrets were ready to go home. Well Folks, I had better stop for now. Elmer worked tonight and after he got home I fixed him a lunch and we had coffee and it is getting kind of late now. First I must tell you about our piano. You know when we tried it before buying it, it sounded all right but then when we got it over here at our house the thing didn't play good at all but we figured for 25 dollars we couldn't expect much from it and we have enjoyed it anyway. I kept getting more and more disgusted with it though so yesterday I opened it up and started looking around and discovered the soft pedal was disconnected and so the piano had the soft pedal on all the time and that was why it wouldn't ring out or play loud. When Elmer came home I told him what was the matter with it and in about two minutes he connected the soft pedal to the stick it was supposed to be connected to and now it plays just swell and we are so glad that we got a good buy after all. It just makes all the difference in the world. Elmer is playing it now. He is trying to learn the chords, so am I, so we can play popular music. It is lots of fun. I wish he would get so interested in the piano he would forget about his violin. Jimmy said, thank goodness daddy works two nights a week. Well Folks, this will be all for now but I'll be anxious to hear about your Christmas and you all sounded wonderful over the phone and I'm certainly planning on seeing you all in the summer. With Love, Helen