My Dearest Daughter

In 1958 my mother got married and moved across the country. These are the letters written to her, mainly by her mother, between 1958 and 1960, as well as other artifacts from my family’s past. Others in the series are in my del.icio.us file.

I was surprised to find this letter. It is dated September 13, 1974 and is written from my grandfather to his mother! My sister and I talked about it. That means this letter was at my great-grandmother’s house, some how made it back into my mother’s possession, travelled with her to New Mexico and then to Ohio where I finally found it in a box of stuff! Kind of remarkable.

My great-grandmother Lowerta (we called her Grandma Werty) was a wonderful woman. I have never heard anyone say anything remotely negative about her. My grandfather was her second son.

He mentions his wife, my grandmother, Helen, in this one.  Her health was starting to decline at this point, in fact she only lived another four years. He talks about selling off the cows, which was a sad thing for me because I loved living on a dairy farm. He also mentions Uncle Herm, who was Grandma Werty’s brother. 

He also mentions my Uncle Paul and his wife.  Her name was Irene.  I only remember meeting her once but she was very sweet.  When she died Uncle Paul sent her costume jewelry to us and I wore her faux pearls for my wedding.  Uncle Paul himself had a stroke about 10 years later where he could totally understand what was going on around him but all of his words, whether spoken or written came out as jibberish.  The worst part was that he knew they were coming out wrong but couldn’t do a thing about it. I felt so bad for him because of that but he was a very good man.

Dear Mother,



It is raining this morning. We need the rain very badly. The earth is so hard we could hardly plow the ground for wheat. We came home in fine shape and many, may thanks for such a nice time and my thanks to Janet for dinner. How are you and Opal with her trouble? 


I took Helen to the doctor on Wednesday. She is suffering quite a bit from pain in her hips.


 Her brother Paul’s wife had a bad stroke, two in all now and this one is very bad. 



I went to see Frances Taylor Valencort. She had an accident and spilled boiling water on her legs and feet. It burned the blood veins and nerves under the skin.


A more pleasant thought now.  I repaired my old hay baler and bailed seven h undred bales of wheat straw and got them under cover befoer it rained. Ha! (no joke).  I just counted my squash in the garden, 56 butter not and 20 butter cup, 8 green hubbard and 16 golden hubbard.  The corn fields are looking up.




We had our first buyers for the cows yesterday. No sale yet.



I’m going to take my honey off now.  The honey crop is very bad in southern michigan.  The old saying- you can’t win em all!. 


I’m going to answer Uncle Herm’s letter now and we wil meet you and kiss you the twelfth of October. Have a good day and remember I Love you.


Cal. 

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