663 12/7/1950 Helen Carlson to Sadie Erwin

Helen Carlson 4008 Randall Avenue, St. Louis Park, Minneapolis 16, Minnesota Thursday, December 07, 1950

Sadie Erwin 1120 Cole St., Enumclaw, Washington

Dear Folks, I have a little free time this morning and I can thank our big snowstorm for that, so I will finally get a letter off to you. A woman from the gas company was supposed to come out this afternoon and bake a cake for me on my gas stove in order to check the oven. Therefore, I worked extra hard yesterday cleaning the stove and the kitchen and everything but she just called and asked me what the roads were like out here and I told her we were practically snowed in so we cancelled her date until some other day. The only bad thing about it is I had told Jim and Mary how there would be a nice big cake waiting here for them when they came from school and told them they could each have a friend in for cake and milk. Now I’ll just have to get busy and bake one myself and I sure wish I had a package of cake mix in the house but I haven’t so will have to make the whole thing. This is the third day it has been snowing so it is really piled high but very pretty. The drifts are high and the kids really have to plow through it from the house to the bus stop. Our car is really snowed under and won’t get dug out until Saturday because I never get out during the day now and Saturday will be the first chance Elmer will have to work on it. I called the neighbor next door to come over for coffee and she will be due in about half an hour. I have been working steadily every day all day long and don’t even think about getting a nap but I feel absolutely wonderful and I have so much ambition and I can’t relax even to hardly sit down and rest because there is so much to do. Last night after all the kids were in bed Elmer and I played gin rummy and just sitting down in the peace and quiet did me as much good as sleeping. I sure don’t get much sleep as the baby wakes up every two or three hours during the night to eat and sometimes he won’t go right back to sleep. He is just darling now though. He is so fat and his eyes are big and his hair is so red. I dress him up now in the afternoons in little rompers and he looks so cute. Last week I started giving him strained meat and bananas and he loved it but he cried steadily for two days afterward and we didn’t know what was the matter. Then I decided maybe the new food didn’t agree with him so haven’t given him any more and he has gone back to being real good again. What kind of a letter did Edna write back to Gladys. Did she seem to understand the situation or did she still think Glad and Cully were mean to Ralph. I hope he won’t be left with the girls anymore. Your Thanksgiving dinner sounded wonderful and I know you all had lots of fun. Ever since we were over at Carlson’s, Delores has called me just about every night. She tells me to bring the baby over to her house anytime I want to go out and she will take care of him all day long and everything like that. I certainly will never take her up on anything but at least I will be nice to her now for the sake of everyone. We have never celebrated the holidays with Elmer’s family, but it has seemed funny to spend Christmas alone and so I have invited everyone over here for Christmas Eve. Jimmy and Mary will enjoy it, and I will too for that matter, because there should be people around it seems. There will be twenty of us counting all the kids. We will have supper or more of a snack first and then open presents. We will keep our presents until morning but open just what they bring over. They will all bring something along for the supper too. I think those earrings you told me about sound just wonderful. I know she would like them. Last weekend I told Parry if she wanted to go Christmas shopping I would take care of Mark for her so she brought Mark over at nine in the morning, which was just fine, but she didn’t get back until seven o’clock that night. I didn’t think that was quite right though because that made an awful long day to have him. That was Monday morning I took care of him so next time I offer to keep him I’m going to tell her she can’t stay so long. Last Sunday night Elmer had to go to Chicago to look at a job there. He came back Monday night. There is a neighbor of ours that we don’t really know but every morning Elmer sees him at the bus stop and they just say good morning and when he got off the train in Chicago this same neighbor got off too and it was about the same usual time in the morning and they just spoke to each other and started to go on and then they realized how funny it really was to have the same thing happen even though they were in Chicago so they stopped and talked to each other for a few minutes. Elmer and I and even Jim and Mary will just love that Geographic Magazine you are sending to Elmer. That will be a wonderful thing but I know that must be an expensive magazine and I hoped you wouldn’t spend too much on us this year. My package isn’t ready to send yet but I hope this weekend to get everything pretty well organized and get the packages to all of you off the first of the week. Eden and Wally stopped over Sunday evening for a few minutes. They are fine. I haven’t gotten the baby bed from Clara yet and I want to hold off until after Christmas before buying it. I’ll have to call her soon and ask her how much she wants for it. Maybe she has sold it to someone else by now. I had my six week’s examination last Saturday. I had a small tumor on my womb when he examined me when I first got pregnant and he said he would remove it after I had the baby. That is very common in women who have had children. Anyway, I dreaded this checkup so much because they burn out the tumors with an electric needle. When I went in the nurse gets everything ready first and then the doctor came in and examined me and the tumor had gone away. He said I was in perfect condition and all my parts had gone back to place nicely where he said it usually takes about three months before a woman is back to normal. Next week Davy is going to be circumcised in the hospital but it is so much easier taking care of them if it has been done. Well Folks, I better get the coffee pot washed out as Wilma will be coming over any minute. I hope to get a little cleaning done upstairs today and that will be a job because it is a perfect mess up there. I pile stuff on the stairs until all the steps are full and then every so often carry everything upstairs but it is such a mess up there I hardly know where to start picking up. Elmer fixed the electric train up good again. It is in the basement. I just heard all the boys down there when they all come in and Saturday I’m going to have Elmer bring the folding bed down there so they can sit there and read comics. Well Folks, I had better stop for now. I had a cute letter from Sandy yesterday. She prints so nicely and I really enjoyed hearing from her. More later. Love, Helen