This post is the 19th in the Series of posts “Going to Afghanistan”

To:
Hemme Martin
149 N. Forest St.
Gilroy, California

From:
405 N. Roop St.
Carson City, Nevada

Typed letter:

October 8, 1958

Dear Mother,

Your letter of yesterday addressed to Mrs. Lloydine Martin arrived in good time.  Incidentally, the previous one which you asked a report on was mailed Tuesday and arrived on Thursday.

I found your news that Maude was taking a trip very interesting.  I think that is wonderful and she should by all means see the eye-opening sights of Nevada before she returns to much more sedate Kansas City.  Someday I am going to become downright annoyed if you continue to discuss at great length the manner of getting from Reno to Carson City every time you or someone else thinks of a trip here.  I have said before, and I repeat again, once and for all that I always stand ready to drive up to Reno to pick people up from any means of conveyance.  In planning trips you are supposed to assume this approach and skip all the palaver about the last thirty miles each time.  There are very few times that it could not be arranged, and these can be determined ahead of time.  For October the 31st would be impossible as that is admission day, and open house here, and a football game too - Ken’s last.  Saturday evenings the 17th and 24th are also football games.

I shudder every time you mention asking Eva to drive your car up here, but I guess if you are both foolish enough to try it, there is nothing I can do.  We can manage to sleep you.

Enclosed is the $40.00 which comes from Martin each month, and should come directly to you after this.  It is based on a deal between Martin and us, but will be easier handled if directed to you personally.

I do hope Maude can get around while the perfectly gorgeous weather we have been having is still here, and while our leaves are golden yellow, as it appears they will be this year.  Some years the frosts come wrong for color.

By devoting myself exhaustingly to the job I finally got my lawn planted, all 8,000 + sq. ft. of it.  Now I am continuously watering it and waiting for green to show.

Kenneth is very busy with football.  Both boys are having 6 weeks test now.  Martin is over around Greece.  Fred arrived; but we are just getting letters from Amritsar, where he was grounded for a few days before being able to continue his trip to Kabul, by weather and compass troubles.

Even though the lawn part is in I am still spending my days and strength getting rid of weeds in the back part of the property.  I won’t get at the inside of the house until the weather changes.

Do try to urge Maude to come up here.  She would be most welcome.

Did I tell you our telephone number now is GRanite 2-1793.

Lots of love from all of us.
Lloydine, Ken, Donald.

Notes:  This day Fred will also write, for you the letter comes tomorrow.  Lloydine is forty-five (born June 28th 1913), her mother is seventy-one (born August 5th 1887).  There is an understandable difference in ages and in attitudes and in ones approach to things.  Hemme (Lloydine’s mother) likes to be independent.
Lloydine likes to be practical.  It is practical to drive to Reno to pick people up who do not own or drive a car, it is only 60 miles round-trip; distances do seem shorter in Nevada.

The issue really revolves around transportation, not tempers (you have noticed that Lloydine can be outspoken).  The history revolves around the California trail and the northern branch that Donner took later followed by US 40 (now Interstate 80) and the southern branch that went through Carson City and Genoa and over the Sierras to Placerville (Hang Town) and then on to Sacramento, mostly the US 50 route (still US 50).  The two trails are only 30 miles apart in western Nevada, the difference between Carson City which was there first and Reno (Lakes Crossing) that came later.

Donner (the Donner Party) took the northern route and Donner died and his party ate others in the party and after that most people went further south on their road to California.  Snow was involved.  So when they built the railroad connecting East to West they built snow sheds and followed the Donner Route, probably just to spite the stagecoach lines and Wells Fargo that took the route further south.  By 1958 most of the east-west traffic was routed through Reno, most buses, the only train, the only airport offering scheduled passenger service.  The V&T Railroad had stopped running ten years earlier, so it was just cars (automobiles) that connected Reno to the State Capital in Carson City.

There was one bus, the V&T Transit bus that had nothing to do with the V&T except borrowing the name and nobody had a schedule outside of Nevada so one waited for a connection from Greyhound (from Reno) for their daily bus to Los Angeles down US 395 if you call once a day service “bus transportation”.   To try and understand why it was so hard to get to a State Capital without a car was not unlike trying to understand why Afghanistan didn’t have streetcars in their capital city of Kabul.  It was beyond explaining, so the simple solution was not to go to Carson City if you were on your way through Reno.

“You can’t get there from here”, someone in Reno might say to anyone without a car.

Hemme did have a car, ancient and black and an Oldsmobile or a Packard from the war years, maybe older.  It burned oil.  It had questionable breaks.  The transmission was not good (was bad).  The steering left something to be desired and going over US 40 via Donner that wasn’t good and going over US 50 via the cliffs above Stateline in 1958 was even worse.  Both roads were better than the Kabul Gorge perhaps, paved and guard rails or pretty rock walls; many Packards had gone over the cliffs after plowing through
the block walls.  Eva and Hemme could try it; independence might be good.  Or so this was Lloydine’s perspective; a sixty mile drive to Reno made things so much more simple; it was her mother.

Maude was Alfin’s wife, Hemme’s brother who died from the influenza of 1918 on Christmas Day.  He was 40, he left two children and a wife and she and then they lived their life in Kansas City (Kansas).  The story is more complicated; I should post Maude’s letters.  The point is that Maude, older than Hemme, had never before been West and Nevada was exciting and Maude was family and what does one do when ones husband is in Afghanistan and football is almost over and the lawn is planted and the election has been all set?  Why not have some family time?  Mother and Maude; Mother or Maude; do they even like each other?

The “G,R” prefix for Carson City was made memorable by associating the letters with a name that had a local connection.  This was the practice then by “Ma Bell” in an effort to make telephones and telephone calling both personal and memorable.  Carson City had operators and operator assisted local calls before this time, the old telephone number for the house was 246M, now Carson City had five digit numbers with the prefix “Granite”, suggested by the countless rock boulders that were evident on the sides of the hills all around the town.  Hemme liked the new telephone moniker because it was a prefix named for rocks, a rare prefix indeed in the Bell System lexicon of names.

The only other person who had come up with a use for Carson City’s granite boulders was Dick Graves, founder of the Carson City Nugget, inventor of the double-decker hamburger the Awful, Awful (think Big Mac now) and founder of the Sparks Nugget and the Circus Room and the whole idea of “Circus-Circus” as a casino theme.  Oh, he also established the V&T Room which was the proto-type idea for the whole Victoria Station restaurant concept.

Anyway, Dick Graves moved to Carson City from Idaho, opened the Nugget, put tens of thousands of dollars worth of gold on display right by the front door and commissioned 10,000 “Last Chance Joe” inflated rubber dolls to promote his “Strike It Rich” campaign for getting customers traveling US 50 or 395 into the Nugget.  This wasn’t enough, Dick Graves thought, so he pondered how to really get the idea across how “big” “Strike It Rich” could be in the minds of travelers.  He decided that the idea could be best conveyed by showing them really really big Nuggets of gold, the size of boulders.

Kenneth was the age of Dick Graves son and a friend of his son; Carson was a small town and almost everyone was a friend of everyone which is the case in small towns that work everywhere.  So, in no time Dick Graves (the father) had persuaded no small number of Carson’s sons to go up in the hills along the highways with large buckets of bright gold paint to turn as many granite boulders as possible into giant nuggets that might lure travelers and tourists into becoming consumers of Awful, Awfuls and then might become friends of the one-armed bandits (slot machines) of which Dick Graves owned so many; or had so many as the owners of bandits were always the friends of banks and maybe Dick Graves borrowed the money to start all this gambling but no one knew for sure.

What does all this have to do with Afghanistan one might ask.  Everything is the simple answer.  Life in Carson City was like a microcosm of America and it was no hard task to realize that the whole point of bringing Americans to Afghanistan was to bring America to Afghanistan, warts and all, one highway at a time perhaps; one airport, one plane and finally maybe Dick Graves could fly to Afghanistan and hire his sons or others to paint the boulders in the Kabul Gorge with bright gold paint and lure the tribal elders of Pakistan to drive up the highway to Kabul to pull the arms of his one-armed bandits in a grand casino located somewhere in the better part of Kabul.  Think big; the whole future may lie before you.

Strike It Rich!

[2010.03.16 / Tuesday - I shudder every time]

To:  Miss Evelyn Buckingham
King City, California
PO Box 231 (or 131)

Forwaded to:
59 North Monterey Street
Gilroy, California

From:
Private Charles Nelson
408 School Squadron
Sheppard Field, Texas

Dearest Evelyn:
Just a card to let you know that I have not forgot you honey.  Have got to take my expert airplane mechanic next week and I sure hope I pass OK.  Don’t know yet how I got into the air corp but will figure it out when I have more time.  What is new in King City or is just same old story?  This place where I am at in Texas is a Reception Training Center for all air Corp men and is quite a large Camp.  Must close and be sure and write soon.
Love Charles.

This is a postcard with a bomber pictured on the face.  If you have any information about either Charles Nelson or Evelyn Buckingham please contact me by E-Mail to this site.  Was Charles Nelson from King City?

[Posted: 2009.06.10 / Wednesday - Keep ‘Em Flying]

Among Forty-Three Kisses
and Sixty-Seven Hugs.
But not Down and Out.
Thurs. 9 P.M. Aug. 20.
1931.

My Dollings!

My Heart is
Not Broken,
You have remembered me via Air Mail - Believe It or Not, I heard from you at 10 A.M. this Auntie Meriden.

Now I am tucked in my little trundle and all the other little Bears are also in hibernation.  Not Believe It Or.  (I have to sit up to keep the lamp company or it will go out.)

It was cloudy & cool today, rain Tues. night, and I have been actually getting fat since hot weather.  No one eats creme but me and I eat it on creamcheese all the time.  So no skeletons will haunt your house when I rattle home.

Yesterday Loyall and I painted most of the kitchen floor and I washed & boiled a big wash.  Today I ironed it all and painted the rest of the kitchen and the hall floor.  Besides I had two callers and cleaned and mopped the front room and got the usual three meals.

Rev. Wroten (husband of Audrey Iams, organist in M.E. church, Green, when Lloydine was there) who is now and was in 1905 - Methodist preacher in Green, called.  Mother could not remember him altho he calls three times a year, until she talked awhile and he told her his name, etc.  Then she was very glad to see him.  He came to ask if the Ladies Aid, 20 women, of Green could call on Mother’s birthday Sept. 14, and if I could stay till then.  I could not think it best for Mother so I am asking them not to come but send birthday cards if they wish.  I know Dr. Morton will tell them she has trouble with her heart and anything exciting is to be avoided.

As it happens there are five or six neighbors here who have planned to come over and Mrs. Chaffee is going to make a big cake with candles and cook the coffee and have charge.  It will be only chosen friends and Mother will like that much better.

You poor little lonesomes will be orphans cheerfully awhile longer, I know, when you think how Mother wants me to stay here as long as I possibly can be spared.  I really can‘t set a date but know now I can‘t leave on the 26th as I had hoped.  I may not get home until College opens but will come as soon as I can get away from here without too much shock to Mother (She had hoped I could stay always.)  I am now counting on about the 3d to leave here, but as I say, it may be later.  It won’t be sooner.  She often thinks I am her youngest sister (Aunt Emma)  She is wonderfully pleased with the painted floors.  The kitchen is oak (orange yellow) as it was before.  I shall give it another coat tomorrow.  We could walk on all of it tonight, and did.  I had to dry it daytimes because Mother walks at night and could not keep off of it without we watched carefully.  It dried in 4 1/2 hours.  It is 11 x 15 1/2 and took 1 1/3 qts. of paint as the boards are worn hollow.  My brush is 30 years old and the handle is so split by nails it was hard to hold together (but I would have used a rag if necessary!)  John used it last week in tar for roofing the hog-shed and I have no turpentine but used gasoline and kerosene to clean it somewhat.  (You have no idea of what life is, my birdies, till you’ve lived it on a farm!)  (And a 3 inch brush!)

Bow Wow.  Our dog Spot is the happiest dog and I wish you had him.  I had a notion to take him along (to get rid of him); but I guess he would not be happy there, and Grandma likes him here.  I have an old (15 or more yrs) Granny Cat who won’t come in but meets me for food twice daily and lives in the orchard.  She is stiff and creaky of joint but really pretty of face.  My personal bodyguard.  Then Mother has the young Mother Cat who can open screen doors herself, and Two White Kittens.   They all romp all over the house and the kittens sleep in the open windows or in a wash boiler in the hall.  They are as alike as two peas and 1/3 grown.  Play with a broom or spools or a piece of corn cob, by the hour.  Play hide and seek together and scrap in fun.  Mother calls them her “Playthings.”

Loyall has a pet rabbit that drinks milk and sits in the West window and EATS what he gives it in the woodshed between “sits”.  I feed Spot two quarts of sour milk daily and scraps.  I feed something all day long and I am ready to go to bed when I get a chance.  I sleep soundly until 5:30 or 6:00 too.  Thank goodness I don’t have to feed the chickens nor John’s piglets, hoglets, and other creatures of the barnyard, cow-yard, calves, horses, ad lib.

Our callers at sundown tonight were:  Mrs. Chaffee, daughter Marion Davis, two granddaughters, Diane and ?, and sister-in-law Laura Chaffee as chauffer.  We had a lovely visit, Marian especially asking to see Lloydine’s “Baby Book” which Mrs. C. had seen (when threshers were here.)  Marian was a Dietician & College graduate before she married and at Mayo’s a year.  Her hubby is a civil engineer employed by the State of Kansas.  Mrs. C. sent Mother a box of cling peaches yesterday, ripe and sweet, to eat.  She likes them.  Marian & Laura thot the “Book” wonderful.

Tuesday I attended the “Farm Bureau” which is extention study sponsored by Kansas State College at Manhattan, and supported by taxation, for farm woman & others all over the State.  It is a fine idea and carried on remarkably well by groups of women in each township (or two.)  The College supplies lessons and literature for every member each meeting and the programs are stipulated in detail.  They meet in members homes.  We studied foot comfort - Shoes and Hosiery, and learned everything a college could tell about selecting shoes, exercising the foot, how to walk, diseases, etc. etc. and kinds of hosiery - size, etc.  Then we had a lesson in Gesso (chess-o - German).  We each were given a picture, some celotex (or some wall board) and the proper kind of mucilage.  We mounted the picture leaving a narrow edge.  We applied floor wax to picture & rubbed to a soft finish.  The instructor gave the recipe for gesso and we copied it.  Then she mixed it as per recipe.  With kitchen knives we spread half the frame roughly.  With nut picks we designed.  Then finished the frame.  I used a toothpick, I had an etching of a church.  After half an hour we mixed shellac and bronze pwd. for gold, and blue pwd. also.  Applied as we wished with small brushes.  I put blue in hollows and gold in high spots.  I gave mine to Mother and she likes it and put it on the front room wall.  The etching is rough so pretty nice.  The gesso was whiting and turpentine and varnish I believe and cost 35 cents for about 15 pictures.  The wall board was 45 cents for a half a sq. yd. about.

It was great fun.  Talking to the women while they did it, especially.  Mrs. Dexter and Frances & Helen took me home in their Pontiac Six and Leonard Chaffee came for me in his Ford coupe.  Chaffees have a big car also but I don’t know what kind.

Now you see what makes my letters long.
Save the pictures:  My Dollings!

(Stick figures and x’s in a “Ham-Bones” expression and ‘explanation’ - simple graphic image).

Choke the veteran and comb the bushes for other victims.  If you can’t sell we will move in and keep two college girl room mates - one with a car.  I would just as soon if we can.  That is if we can raise the furniture.  Or if we can get along awhile longer just keep on trying to sell and someone will be buying before long I am sure.  It has been a bad time of year to show the place.  When College starts is better.  I am not surprised that market is slow now.  I would like to hug you both for writing so nicely to me, after 12 long days wait.  I know I am sometimes slow too but I try nobly to write often, don’t I?  I am very well & hope you are better.

Lovingly and Devotedly - Mama Scud.  xx oo

P.S.  Don’t fail to tell me what I asked about my package gift, gifts.  If you haven’t already.  I owe a letter.

Next HNB Letter - August 22, 1931.

[1931.08.20 / day - HNB to GDM & LDM in San Diego, California.]

Green, Thursd. the 12th?

Dear Lloydine,

Will scratch a note as Loyall is going to Green and the mail does not come past here as the road is torn up for a few days.

Do write & tell me if part of the Birthday gifts were from Grandma* so I can acknowledge them if they were.  She said hers would be a couple days late & there has not been any other pkg.

I & we are very well.  Grandma not so well mentally as a week ago.  It worries her herself very much as she says she always was so smart and could answer anything.

The weather is around 75 degrees this week.  It was 54 degrees at 6:30 A.M. Tuesday.  I put on more clothes.  It is wonderful to work and sleep.  I am already getting fat again (?).

Ludwig’s Ida Lund & Lorraine were over all yesterday P.M. and 15 mo. old boy baby.  There are 6 children now (Maxine & L. in High School at Green) The other 3 boys in Pleasant Hill**  L. remembers you she said.  She is 14.

Tomorrow I am going out for the first time.  To a neighborhood party at Osborne’s Springs near May Day*** for Curtis Lund who teaches in Minnesota Univ.  He is home for 10 days after Summer school (Frank’s boy)  It is a picnic.

Must close.  Love.
Your doting Mama Rosy.

P.S.  Send piece quilt scraps if you can.  Mother has not quite enough.  Send to me not her.  You needn’t write her if you haven’t unless you send it to me to read first.  Send pieces quick as she is sure I can get some more and the house is bare.

Next HNB Letter - August 20, 1931.

Note: *Hemme’s birthday was on August 5th, the implication (or fear) is that her mother may have sent her present to San Diego “automatically”.  ** Pleasant Hill is a nearby ‘community’ and school where Hemme taught when she was about nineteen.  ***May Day is another community and school where HNB taught, when she was 15 or 16 years old.

[1931.08.12 / Thursday - HNB to LDM in San Diego, California.]

Upstairs -
Where the West Begins.
Tues. July 28, 1931.

Dear Lloydine,-

Hot?  I’m so hot I’m cool.  But there is a breeze here and I can have shoes & stgs. off, which I can’t any-where else.  This is unusual weather for Kansas.

It is only 114 degrees on the north porch.  (3 P.M.)  Was 114 degrees several hours yesterday also.  The corn leaves nearly crumpled and blew away yesterday.  I don’t know what today will do.  The south thermometer goes as high as it can every morning but does not break, about 123 degrees,  The chickens all come home to stand in the water troughs and the dog nearly dies and we put the cat & kittens down cellar.  Some sick hens died yesterday.  John pours water on the suffering hogs.  They puff.  I keep carrying fresh water to the little chicks, and sour milk.  That is good for them.  It is too hot for the horses to plow so John stays home and helps get water, etc.  He gathers eggs and we don’t let mother out in the sun.  I cook in the morning for all day.

Yesterday Loyall drove out from Kansas City to stay a week.  I find him very eager to help at anything.  He puts up with anything and doesn’t want to be any bother to anyone.  He doesn’t wait to be told to do things.  Today he went to Green for us and then I had him help me paper the kitchen till 12 noon.  This afternoon I declared a holiday for everyone.  So no work.  Mother is sewing and singing but John & Loyall are asleep, Loyall in his blue roadster under a locust tree.  He is 5 ft. 11 in.  Never will be handsome but is quick at everything.

Only once, years ago, was it this hot in Kansas John Lund said this morning.  Towards morning the oven-like heat disappears a few hours.  But I sleep very well, always glad when bedtime comes.

Maybe you can imagine why I can’t write you as I would like.  I’m unable to think of anything but the necessities here.  You are really in paradise and should take a nap every afternoon and write out your menus for a week so you won’t “waste time”.  Make the work easy and don’t think of it until time to get busy and do it.  An hourly schedule will help.  Have a definite time to rest, sew, read, etc. just as important as to cook, or anything.  You know you can enjoy summer without going round and round.  But writing your menu ahead for several days will keep you from worrying about meals.  I used to do that.

Loyall has the south room and goes thru the window with pillow and quilt to sleep on top of the porch.  John sleeps in the hay rack when his east room is hot.  I sleep in my bed regardless of weather.

Thanks for the things rec’d today.  You should have sent me the cheapest paper, etc.  We don’t buy anything here that is more than bare necessity.  And the old shoe paste would have been plenty.  Well, in another month I shall be with you again, for my vacation.  Write me when will you start college.  What did you have to go up for the other day?

I suppose you & Daddy both received my letters so I don’t have to repeat.  Be sure Daddy has paid $1.50 to Demers on Aug. 1st., or else you do it.

I haven’t read a word of world news since I came here.  Won’t I be back-woodsy.  I’ll have the radio run all day.

About spelling, be sure to spell Marcia right.  Everything else has been 100%.  Your letters are lovely and quite correct in every detail, which is more than I can say about my hasty scribbles.  You quite save my life with your epistles.

I hope the dentist is easier on you now.  But when I look at Loyall I am so thankful you have had a chance to get yours straightened.  He has been brought up a very poor boy.  You can easily see that.  But he never complains about it.  And he is so full of interest in aviation it is real encouraging.

This hot weather has ruined my hair and if I can ever get to a barber I shall have a short bob.  It is so windy here.

I washed & boiled 3 boilerfuls of clothes yesterday, burning old wall paper and using lye instead of soap.  When I hung them out the dish pan in sun burned my hand so I had to use a holder to carry it in, and then I looked at the thermometer and that was the first I knew it was over 110 degrees (at eleven o’clock).  I haven’t ironed yet.  I have 2/3 of things washed that are real dirty but no quilts or heavy overalls yet.  I shall not attempt quilts if they need it ever so bad.  There are 20 pairs of bib-overalls mother can make rugs of.

I won’t need curtains or cretonne.  Use the old cretonne drapes for old rugs.  I hope you don’t go to Seattle as the time is getting pretty short till school, and it will cost so much.

I don’t care though, and certainly I wouldn’t go along even if I were there.  I expect to rest when I get back.  I have lost at least 10 lbs I think, altho I feel real well here and don’t mind the work at all.  Just worried about other things.

Uncle Will wrote me he would not be returning in August.  Wasn’t well enough to write but would tell me when he saw me.

Can you use these lovely linings?  I have no time here nor “artistic ability”.

The pictures drawn from life of you and Daddy keep me company when I look at them & mourn for you.  They are so like you both.

I think you are a real success as a housekeeper but don’t get a house of your own soon as it isn’t always you can have as nice a co-partner as Daddy is.  He is one in a million.  I’ve seen several here I wouldn’t trade him for if they threw in the world.

Some day we will all three drive back to Kansas for a short visit and play hide and seek on the farm.  An agent came the other day and Mother thought it was Guy come for me.  He looked something like Guy and has a sister in Tustin.  He wanted to sell us an auto & was from Clay Center.  Mother asks about you and smiles and makes some remarks about you, “So big a girl”, etc.

I must stop.  The sun is coming in and I am melting.  Will take a sponge bath and go down, refreshed.

Try to have the happiest time a girl of 18 without worries can, in a lovely little cottage, pleasant surroundings and everything as favorable as it will ever be in your whole life, but remember to rest and relax first of all, and just lie around when you can.  Loads of love.

From Your Mother, Rosie

Next HNB Letter - July 31, 1931.

Note #1:  There is a recent website report on the controversy regarding the issue of “Man Made Global Warming”, the so-called Al Gore Effect.  This latest report discloses that the wrong temperature data was used from Russia resulting in ‘the highest temperatures ever’.  It was an error, the report of ‘highest temps’ is false.  Even the current decade is as of yet not the hottest, though with the right kind of war that could change.  The record hottest decade for the world was (and still is) the 1930’s.  The relation between exceptional heat, depression, and war should perhaps be revisited.

Note #2:  Loyall’s father was Alfin Backlund, Hemme’s second oldest brother (surviving infancy).  He was successful in his chosen field of electrical engineering, only to die at the height of his career on the day after Christmas in the year 1918 of the influenza.  He was 40 years of age.  Life for Maude, his wife, soon became very difficult as she struggled to raise her two young sons.  She did her best in raising Loyall in an era mostly devoid of company pensions, social security safeguards, women’s rights, and the host of social service supports that we now take for granted, and even too unwisely sometimes complain about.

[1931.07.28 / day - HNB to GDM & LDM in San Diego, California.]

“Up in the Attic, Under a Teacup”
Sunday, July 25th
(2 P.M.)  1931

Darling Hubby, -

Your lovely letter received and nothing could be nicer.  Of course I am not really under a teacup, as I keep the teacups below me in the cupboard; but I am in the draftiest corridor of the upper staircase as it is 107 degrees downstairs on the north porch, and the family is all strewn about, below.  I crave to be alone.  Ye Gods!  I will be an angel if I (do or don’t) live thru this.

I hope you are not having too many worries and that you are real well.  Mother M. wrote the program of last Sunday.  How could they go so much and then back to supper at the same house.  They never would for us.  And radio, even Seth Parker!  But maybe they liked rabbit  We will have rabbit.

For dinner to day I cooked beets, and rice, fried bologna, made potato salad.  Had coffee, bread, jelly.  I get three meals a day, wash all dishes, do all sweeping, scrubbing, help tend milk things.  But will not gather eggs.  Mites annoy me too much.  Chiggers are bad enough.

John bought 21 hogs for $100 yesterday, to fatten I guess, and eat a big field of alfalfa that blue grass choked out.  Then he will plow it.  His alfalfa has mostly dried up anyway in another field.  The drought has struck us again, with hot winds.  Weeds are wilted.

Last year we sold 1088 doz. eggs for $215 and about the same the year before.  About 200 hens.  Not very good I’d say.  He keeps account of everything.

Who do you think dropped in last night!!!  I hardly knew him.  Our old friend Alfred Belin, from everywhere, and his sister Goldie from Oklahoma City.  Goldie had her two little boys with her and Alfred drove someone’s big nice car.  Came about 8 P.M. and stayed till nearly midnight.  They came from their banker brother-in-law’s in Green, a half sister’s.  They heard I was home and came right over.  Alfred brought Goldie from Ok. City two days ago and will leave her visiting while he goes to La Junta, Colo. tomorrow to work his territory in Colorado.  She will stay two wks.  Another sister, Virgil is here from Los Angeles now.  Alfred spent 3 wks in San Diego in March but thought we were in San Luis Obispo.  He is twice as heavy, almost.  Inquired all about you and us, very nicely, wondered also if Lloydine remembered him.  He works New Mexico too.  Tried Tia Juana once but no good.  Not in old Mexico any more.  Wanted to be remembered to you.  Mother was so glad to see him, and wanted him to come again.  I realize she has simply been too much alone.  She is mentally alright now, for three days past.

[Note:  The letters were read and saved over the years, many obviously reread and the pages not always properly to the proper envelope.  Eventually missing pages may be found or properly matched up.  On this day, such is not the case.  “Page 4″ (a new sheet) continues with a missing page from a past letter, obviously about the threshing men eating…]

You have no idea how they ate.  I will tell you 1 - Seven loaves of bread, 1 1/2 pecks of potatoes, $5 worth of meats also, 1/2 lb. rice, 1 lb. dry beans, 2 qts. peaches, 2 qts apricots, 2 boxes macaroni, 1/2 lb. cheese, 3 cans peas, 2 cans hominy, 2 cans tomatoes, 3 lbs fresh tomatoes, 4 doz. cookies, 1 lb. coffee, 2 lbs. butter, 2 doz. eggs, a bucket or two of milk (and cream), 2 heads cabbage, about a gallon of gravy or more, and I don’t know what else.  And I cooked it all myself.  Cost 90 cents per man, almost, but of course they do not pay for anything.  The oven would not bake so I had to pot roast the meat, mostly, and couldn’t have pie.  But baked pudding, macaroni, etc. in huge pudding dishes, and had minced ham ($1.30 worth) one meal.  I had three big kettles of roast in all, and it turned out just lovely, browned a little and tender as could be.  And oh, how they ate it!  I had more fun!  And they all tried to get a good look at the cook without being a bit rude.  They were very mannerly and most of them neighbors.  John Lund’s thresher, Dan & Frank Bergstrom, Robt. Chaffee, Monty Rundquist, and others you wouldn’t know.   I made one of them help me, besides John, the first meal.  Some of them had 3 cups of coffee, and most of them two, and the water glasses used two buckets of water each meal so one person was busy “pouring” and John did that.  I refilled the serving dishes and kept things going around.  I had Monty’s boy, Deane count noses, get chairs in place, put glasses around, etc.  They quit threshing at 7:30 P.M. and were all out of the house at 8:30 P.M.  (For washing before supper they used 2 bowls and a tub and three combs and three big roller towels and two mirrors out on the porch.)  I washed the towels for the next time, altho I had six.  Used a lot of dish towels to do dishes and washed them between meals, too.  I was so tired I stacked the dishes the first night and washed only the silverware and kettles and put away the food.  (There were 16 of us & 17 the next day who ate)  Then next morning I was getting the pantry clean because Mrs. Chaffee had said she would help me at dinner and who should come but Sophie (Mrs. John Lund) and she said she was going to help me until Mrs. Chaffee came because she might not come.  (Our phone was dead on account of the rains.)  So I set her to washing the supper dishes and then I had her set the table.  Then she had to go home to get ready for her threshers when Mrs. Chaffee came.  I had her peel potatoes while I mixed things up for the oven, made gravy, etc. etc.  The only thing I did from then on, all day, was cook and cook, except to talk to Mrs. C. a little between times, and she stayed all the rest of the day, and at meal time she helped me, instead of John..  She was really very helpful.  There was no ice in Lasita or Green.  I got Claus Olsen to drive to Green for more meat and supplies.  He is……

Next HNB Letter - August 12, 1931.

[1931.07.25 / day - HNB to GDM in San Diego, California.]

Route 3, Green, Kansas
July 16, 1931

Darling Guy, -

I have written reams to Lloydine to give her some good reading matter to rest her weary college mind.  Now I have practiced a little I will pen a few choice words to convey my love to you.

It was very sweet of you to think of me and write so nicely on the eve of our anniversary, and I am sure the flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la, and even the prairie flowers nodded to each other, in the loveliest way, on that day.*  I thought of it but did not mention it for fear we had not chalked down the same number of years in keeping track of the passage of time; and you might have had twenty-five or thirty instead of nineteen.  Uncle John asked me if I knew that married men live longer than single men, and I told him I didn’t believe it, it only seemed longer.

Your love is a very nice gift for the occasion and I am sending you a kiss and a squeeze for every lovely thought you have extended me the past year.  That’s a flock.

I like your letters, long or short.  How near done is the Hansen house?  Are they almost living there?  I am anxious to hear all about people looking at our house.  Everyone is a prospect.  I am glad you let me take some plans - folks here are interested and think the plans splendid.

Uncle John threshed 1038 bu. of wheat but it is only 28 cents and dropping every day, so he stored it in our granaries.  It averaged 22 bu. which is not startling.  Is a black head wheat, supposed to be good.  The heads look black, not yellow, and very bristly.  His “Kanota” oats, 8 A., averaged nearly 50 bu., the best yield we have heard of around here any year.  Had 394 bu.  One stack of straw, 18 A., was 90 steps around when I hunted strings (found only 3) so I didn’t walk around the one that had 45 A. straw in it!  The wheat was very tall making much straw.

I wish you could “explore” the farm with me.  Today was the first time I have been around, having stayed in or near the house, John says two weeks.  So I went to the barns, found them full of all kinds of interesting things (like Balboa Park, good for many trips)  I opened an oat bin door and found a frisky mouse; looked in a corn crib and frightened a frisky bushy tailed squirrel; chased up a frisky cotton tail in the orchard and a big jack rabbit near the stacks.  I ate plums, mulberries, green or ripe, and ripe gooseberries, au naturelle, till two brown thrasher birds chased me away.  There are many, many birds of all kinds and as bold as can be.  One mocking bird sings at night like at San Diego.  There are henna colored birds in the hollyhocks at the front door, sparrows, king birds, cat birds, canaries, doves etc. etc. in chorus all day long.  The cackle of many hens make fowl talk to add a din to the music.  Oh yes, you should be right with me to see and listen to the farm.  I miss the turtles & frogs so.  There are no ponds.  Uncle John has about twenty cattle, no hogs, a number of horses, I haven’t had time to see how many, but about six.  Lloydine had better be thinking of a “calfie” name.  “Topsy” is Mother’s cow’s name and she is red with a blaze face.  She will have to have a nice name, or two, ready to suggest to “Topsy” soon.

All the farmers are hard up.  Some had to give up their autos.  Some bake their own bread, and some had to sell their wheat, cheap, to live.  I can see it as well as hear it from them.  When it takes a bu. down to the price of a shave (and the expense of producing, unpaid) it seems times are bad.

There is little garden or fruit on account of frosts late in May this year.  The garden here will produce only a few meals, if any.  Have had nothing from it yet, but may get a mess of string beans if I wait long enough, perhaps half a pound.  Soon can dig some potatoes but they are poor and late.  (Mother just came in with the string beans.  One was a pod 14 inches long.  They are all long, a special kind.)  Father** ought to have some but she hasn’t any seed saved and doesn’t know the name.  She sends away for seeds advertised.

I hope you have been pretty well, and could rest at night.  I have been sleeping very well and mother is so much more content that she has not been up nights for quite awhile.  But the problem is no less.  I doubt is she weighs much over half what she did twenty years ago, and she was never heavy.  I doubt if she weighs what I do now, but her belt measure used to be 36 inches when I was home in 1922.  We have given up thinking of getting someone to live here.  John says he can get all the meals if she will let him.  No one would stay.  She has no relatives to come.  Money couldn’t pay enough to keep anyone here.  So I am banking on John’s arm getting better so he can sweep and do the dishes and Mrs. Lund and a couple others will help sweep and clean once in awhile for him they said.  I am glad there will not be much work this fall so John can stay near the house a good deal.  I will get everything in good shape before I leave.  The neighbors will help me paper the rooms.  I am hoping John can buy a front room rug and a congoleum rug and some paint.

I have written Lloydine to get me some things.  I wish you would give her a dollar and she can mail them to me as I can’t get to a decent town around here.  I thought I wouldn’t write so much but here is the bottom of the page.  I will sure appreciate getting back to you and my own comfortable cottage in the West.  My very best love to you and heaps of kisses, from Your Own Rosie - Scud.

Next HNB Letter - July 25, 1931.

*Note:  Guy Dennis Martin & Hemme Naratte Backlund MARTIN were married on July 8, 1912.  July 8, 1931 was their nineteenth wedding anniversary.

There was 2 cents postage due on this letter, resulting in a record of the speed of regular mail service between Green, Kansas and San Diego, California at this time.  The letter was mailed at 3:30 P.M. on the 17th.  It arrived on the 20th, less than three days and at a US postage regular letter rate of 2 cents.  This ‘three days’ matches the time it took Hemme to make almost the same journey, both mail and people moving by trains powered by large boilers of steam.

The farm consisted of 160 acres (A.) of land, the size of the original homesteaded land grant.  Apparently 47 acres was planted in wheat this season.  The threshing took two days (last letter), which means that about 25 acres were threshed per day, or a little more than one acre per person per day, 3 bushels (bu.) per hour per person.  At a wage of 50 cents per hour ($4 per day) the value from growing the wheat was less than 16 cents per bushel, less the coast of harvesting, less the cost of planting, less the cost of seed.  Fertilizer and pesticides were not used on the farm.  A farmer in America was receiving less for a bushel of wheat than the cost of two plain cake (not sugared or raised) donuts.  One of the great differences between the current economic crisis and the one in the 1930’s is the cost of food - then it was incredibly cheap, now it is incredibly expensive.

**Guy, as in the case of using “Uncle John” to reference her brother, Hemme writes most letters for the convenience of her daughter, although her mother is usually “Mother”, so it can get a bit confusing on occasion, but these are family letters written with a spontaneity as images come to mind.

[1931.07.16 / day - HNB to GDM in San Diego, California.]

Sunday, July the twelfth, 1931
U-No-Where.

Dear Lloydine & Guy, -

I guess you know why I begin so close to the top.  Well, how is every little thing by now.

Here it is 75 degrees at 3 P.M. and it was 105 degrees at noon.  Yes, a nice fast rain with lots of fire talk to watch and hear.  I have more fun on the farm!  And now the wind is blowing a gale, as it has most of the time since I came, and the air is so fresh and filling, if you know what I mean.  Yesterday the same.

We have two white and one grey kitten with eyes just open.  Can hardly walk yet.  The old cat is grey with perfect white markings, clean, (how do you spell aquiline?) and a perfect lady in manner.  Also have a happy dog (Mother says “a good dog, tell them that”) sort of large terrier, short haired, bob tailed, white with brown & black ears, and one big black spot on his back.  So call him “Spot”.  He lies in the shelled corn to keep cool and sleep and is really very quiet and mannerly too.  He spends some days at Ludwig Lunds.  He is teased to death by birds in the bushes, and whines and barks at them.  He often chases two rabbits at once.  Then loses both, probably.  There are so many rabbits both jack and cotton-tail and all their relatives.  It is true then it must be so that this is home coming year for all the formerly-of-Kansas rabbits.  The ponds have no turtles nor frogs to make music (now all stock is watered from tanks)  But I heard a katy-did and I chased some fire-flies.  The chiggars have made my intimate acquaintance.  (But I have been taking a sponge bath every night in my room - and a little soda handy.)

I suppose you and Daddy get along swimmingly, Lloydine, now that you have your new bathing suit.  Take good care of each other so you won’t get lonesome and I will try to get away from here sometime in August.  I am almost too busy to know anything is going on anywhere but right here.  Have to let you do the best you can until I get back.  I cannot even remember the day of the week except that I can’t work on a Sunday.  So I have a calendar I cross the days off on.  We get three newspapers (weeklies only) two of them are locals and no world news.  I almost wish I had the Sun.  But I will be here so short a time I don’t need to read.  I can’t do any writing or studying here, nor sewing to speak of.  Merely exist, get the meals, scrub, etc., wash, iron, carry in wood, feed the cat & dog, wash dishes, carry milk to cellar, etc. and help make it more cheerful for mother so she will be happy and get a rest.  She is already stronger and better.  The Doctor gave her six months to live when she had her first heart spell and that is now more than eighteen months ago.  Now she is out gathering eggs (her chief diversion) and walks with quite a sure step and no cane.  Her last sick spell was in early May.

Oh, about my trip.  I had a berth the first night only, 7.20 and I never went into the diner at all, the whole trip, but I never was hungry either.  I bought two donuts 10 cents and a cup of coffee 10 cents besides filling my thermos once (for 20 cents in Salida, Colo.) besides my 60 cent meal at Salt Lake.  I had no time to eat at Denver and at Manhattan two restaurants were closed for 4th and it was pouring rain so I ate from my lunch box.  When I got home Grandma enjoyed four pieces of your cake and 3 oranges very much.  The cake was moist and nice, and Grandma was very proud of Lloydine.  I had hot coffee from hot water in my thermos 36 hrs.  And in Manhattan the Colo. coffee was still warm 24 hrs.  I had no tips or bus fare to pay all the way so I felt I could afford the $1.00 tally-ho sight-seeing trip in Salt Lake, and I would rather see than eat, so I took that trip.  It was amply worth it.  Then I bought some cards and stamps and a Sat. Eve. Post (and a ticket home $1.22)

This week I have been getting ready for threshers, finding supplies of linen, dishes, etc. cleaning cupboards, washing linen & dishes, scrubbing floors and woodwork.  Will have thirteen men for two days threshing late this week.  And I won’t have any help.  It wouldn’t be so bad if the stove would bake.  I tried pies and cookies and pudding and find it will not bake anything on the bottom.  So I will have to have things cooked on, not in, the stove.  But I don’t let it worry me.  They can take it or leave it!  This week I have cooked potatoes, beans (dry), raisins, rice, and gravy, then start all over again.  I vary it with oatmeal & eggs for breakfast and pancakes.  We buy bread and cinnamon rolls & butter once a week and keep it.  Plenty of milk and once I made custard.  Today I opened a can of peaches, as it was Sunday, had macaroni and boiled beef.

Mother has left breakfast to me also so I have to get three meals a day but it doesn’t matter a great deal.  It is perhaps better not to have her do any of the kitchen work.  The sun sets here at 7:45 which seems late.  We eat supper just before sundown, and John does a lot of work before breakfast (7:00 A.M.)  Our lamps are too dim to see by so I am going to bed after doing up the work, about nine o’clock.

9:00 P.M. - Well, everyone is in bed but me and I am in my room (West).  Tonight it was raining gently at sundown (7:45) (not daylight-saving) and a perfect rainbow was in the sky (Ends at Rundquists & Lasita a mile apart)  We watched to see how long it would last and it was 8:05 when it was all gone.  Mother did not remember seeing a rainbow since she saw her first one as a child and then she was frightened by it.  So we showed her this one and she thought it very beautiful.  She was very much interested.  She is so annoyed at losing her memory.  John has tried to bring things back to her by showing her what she planted and the growth in years.  She says that has helped her to know she has lived here a long time and she can remember that she planted them herself.  She comes upstairs in the night to make sure she has John and that he is safe.  We are so afraid she will fall.  He wakes easily and calls to her and she goes right back to bed, content.  She sometimes goes toward the neighbors and he goes after her and is so patient with her.  He is afraid an auto may strike her if she is on the road.  So we watch and always knows where she is.  That is why I do not go to town with John and I have not sent your watch back.  So much to worry about here.  And I have so little privacy.  She wonders if I am gone if I go to my room.

I think I may have lost a few pounds but I am feeling real well.  I really do not work hard, just keep doing something.

John is going to get some paper and I am going to fix Mothers room up real nice.  She will like that.  And I will take it easy and paper the rooms downstairs that he buys for.  Then if I leave in August I will have done something for my trip and it may look good for awhile again.  I am hoping they can persuade someone to come and live with them and do the cooking and cleaning.  I must stop.  I enjoyed hearing from both of you.

Love and Kisses - Mama. Scud.

Dear Guy:  Your letter was fine.  Tell me all about the jobs & what you are doing & everything, but be sure to write.

Next HNB Letter - July 16, 1931.

Note:  “U-No-Where” is at the Backlund family farm in Lasita, Kansas.  Hemme often used the name “Scud” or “Scudder” as a nickname and also as a pen name.  The term is Scandinavian in origin, although she most frequently referenced its usage to rocks and mineralogy, apparently in reference to its use as a mining term, apparently learned by her in Arizona originally, though the history of the word as used (or learned, or heard) in her life may be deeper.  Lloydine grew up spending many summers on the farm so knows the lay of the land (and buildings) fairly well, but not so well the changes.

Another point worth noting is that Hemme has returned to care for, for a time, her Mother and Lloydine’s Grandmother.  Hemme’s mother, however never again saw her mother after leaving Sweden.  In turn, Hemme never even met any of her four grandparents.  This is an often overlooked theme impacting the lives of the early immigrants to America, among those immigrants that came and stayed, and were never to return to the ‘old’ country.  Much has been made of the huge numbers of people that came to America as immigrants and then left again, returning to the country of their birth.  Most historians imply that it was more for reasons of economics, the unrewarding sweatshops and factory towns they found in their life in this new and ‘modern’ nation.  I suggest that it was also due to the enduring ties of family (that caused them to return), a bond more enduring for many than a ‘not so new’ nation given the often only vague reality of either any greater opportunity or any meaningfully enlarged degree of freedom.

The few letters written by Hemme’s father (he died September 4, 1923) to his relatives back home bear witness to his perception that even in farming any greater wealth that he may have achieved in America was due to a harder and longer work than he would have had in Sweden.  In short, he traded family life for money, an ongoing modern theme.

[1931.07.12 / day - HNB to GDM and LDM in San Diego, California.]

1 1/2 cents postage.
In The Clouds - Official Folder
A thousand miles through the Rockies - Two miles above the sea.
On the Scenic Line of the World - Mailed from The Top of the World - Tennessee Pass, Colo. - Elevation 10242 Ft.
Denver & Rio Grande RailRoad (D&RG RR)

Miss Lloydine Martin
3735 32nd
San Diego, Calif.

“See America” Denver and Rio Grande - The Modern Way, Tennessee Pass, Altitude 10242 Ft.

Denver, Colorado, from State Capitol
Castle Rock, Colorado
Elephant Rock, Near Palmer Lake, Colorado
Gateway, Garden of the Gods, Colorado - Pikes Peak in the distance.
Skyline Drive, Canon City, Colorado
Royal George, Colorado - Spanned by the highest Bridge in the world.
Suspension Bridge over Royal George, Colorado - Canon of the Arkansas
On Top of the Royal George, Colorado
At the Hanging Bridge, Royal Gorge, Colorado
Suspension Bridge over Royal Gorge, Colorado - The highest bridge in the world.
Snow Angel on Mount Shavano, Salida, Colorado
Leadville and Mt. Massive, Colorado - Highest mountain peak in Colorado - Famous Little Johnny Mine in Foreground.
Echo Cliffs, Canyon of the Colorado, Colorado
Mount of the Holy Cross, Colorado
Double Track, Eagle River Canon, Colorado
First Tunnel, Canon of the Colorado River, Colorado
Second Tunnel, Canon of the Colorado River, Colorado
Near Shoshone, Canon of the Colorado River, Colorado
Glenwood Springs, Colorado

Mailed by HNB en route.

Next HNB Letter - July 12, 1931.

[1931.06.30 / day - HNB to John Backlund Jr. in Lasita, Kansas.]

5 cents - Air Mail
U.S. Grant Hotel - San Diego
European Plan - Absolutely Fireproof - Baron Long, President

We have been worried about you both in the hot weather of the past week.

U.S. Grant Hotel
San Diego, California
11 A.M.  June 30, 1931.

Dear John, -

I have just bought my ticket and stopped in here to write you, when I will arrive.

If you are going anywhere the Fourth, don’t stay home on my account, as I will not get there until the afternoon of the Fourth.  Will come to Lasita on the motor from Garrison.  My trunk will not get there as soon as I do because I am changing trains five times en route.  I leave here 2:30 P.M. Wed. 1st

I go by way of Los Angeles - Salt Lake - Denver - Manhattan and Garrison to get a cooler route than I used to take, but costs the same.  I have a couple hours off every supper time at those towns Wed - Thu - Fri - arriving at Manhattan 12:50 Sat. over the Union Pacific #6-26.  I do not go through Clay Center.  If you would rather I came to Clay Center you would have to telegraph me c/o Western Union, The Union Depot, Denver anytime before 10 P.M. July 3, as I will ask there before I leave on my train at 10 P.M.  Then I could change at Junction City.  But because of my trunk I thought I better come to Lasita, although we have carried it inside our auto as it is a “steamer” trunk.  And the motor doesn’t run on Sunday.  If I had not been waiting for the July 1st rates I could have come a day earlier.

If you need to reach me any other time you will have to telegraph Guy as he will know where I am every day on the trip, and would let me know.

If I do not hear from you I will come via Manhattan as I said.  I leave Manhattan 2:35 P.M. and Garrison 3:03 P.M. according to the time table, July 4th

I hope the hot weather hasn’t been too much for you and Mother.  I know it will soon be better - it couldn’t be worse according to the papers.  We are well as usual.  Greetings and Best Wishes.  If you are gone the 4th I can easily walk from Lasita if I remember the way.

Yours Hemmie.

Next HNB Letter - July 3, 1931.

[1931.06.30 / day - HNB to John Backlund Jr. in Lasita, Kansas.]