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Billy talks about his garden and a picnic in his letter. Naturally Alma says, "Isn't it a nice letter?"
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[Diagonally at the top]
Return or else send to Fred. Isn't it a nice letter?
[The letter]
334 Eighth St.
Atlanta, Ga.
May 8, 1927
Dear Aunt Alma:
Thank you for the present you gave me.
I have a garden which has Sweet Peas and Sweet Alyssum. I have Lily of the Valley at school which has bloomed and faded. I grew them for the May Fair. I also made a bird house.
We have some baby chickens.
I think I will get an Erector set with the money you sent me. I am sorry I have not written sooner.
I went on a picnic with my expression teacher the Saturday before last. At the end of the year I am going to say Paul Revere’s Ride for my speech.
School closes about the first Friday of June.
The speaking is like this. Each one says a speech every month and the one that speaks best wins the medal. The medal winners for the six months speak at the end of the year to see who keeps the medal.
With love, Billy
Return or else send to Fred. Isn't it a nice letter?
[The letter]
334 Eighth St.
Atlanta, Ga.
May 8, 1927
Dear Aunt Alma:
Thank you for the present you gave me.
I have a garden which has Sweet Peas and Sweet Alyssum. I have Lily of the Valley at school which has bloomed and faded. I grew them for the May Fair. I also made a bird house.
We have some baby chickens.
I think I will get an Erector set with the money you sent me. I am sorry I have not written sooner.
I went on a picnic with my expression teacher the Saturday before last. At the end of the year I am going to say Paul Revere’s Ride for my speech.
School closes about the first Friday of June.
The speaking is like this. Each one says a speech every month and the one that speaks best wins the medal. The medal winners for the six months speak at the end of the year to see who keeps the medal.
With love, Billy
audio---images---comment---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
Return or else send to Fred.
I figure that Alma sent this letter along to Eva in Philadelphia, and that Eva neither sent it to Fred in Angola nor returned it to Alma, and that it was this failure of Eva to follow instructions that causes us to have this letter. But I don't know for sure.
Also I wonder how many letters were lost because they were sent on to Fred in Angola and then left behind when Fred came home. But I am sure Fred enjoyed all the mail he got from home, and that's the important thing.
2.
Thank you for the present you gave me.
Billy turned 10 on April 19, so this must have been a birthday present.
3.
I think I will get an Erector set with the money you sent me.
Wikipedia says Erector sets were first sold in 1913.
Billy was a professor of engineering (of some sort; I don't know the details) at Carnegie Tech when he grew up.
4.
At the end of the year I am going to say Paul Revere’s Ride for my speech.
Paul Revere's ride is, of course, from Tales of a Wayside Inn by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, starting with:
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
If Billy memorized the whole thing, that was quite a bit of memorization.
5.
As Alma says, it's a nice letter. Given the trouble Billy had at other times with finding things to write about in letters, I'm happily imagining his mother, Kathleen, standing behind him as he wrote. "Tell Aunt Alma about your garden." "Did you tell her about the birdhouse you made?" "Tell her about the chickens." And so on.
Return or else send to Fred.
I figure that Alma sent this letter along to Eva in Philadelphia, and that Eva neither sent it to Fred in Angola nor returned it to Alma, and that it was this failure of Eva to follow instructions that causes us to have this letter. But I don't know for sure.
Also I wonder how many letters were lost because they were sent on to Fred in Angola and then left behind when Fred came home. But I am sure Fred enjoyed all the mail he got from home, and that's the important thing.
2.
Thank you for the present you gave me.
Billy turned 10 on April 19, so this must have been a birthday present.
3.
I think I will get an Erector set with the money you sent me.
Wikipedia says Erector sets were first sold in 1913.
Billy was a professor of engineering (of some sort; I don't know the details) at Carnegie Tech when he grew up.
4.
At the end of the year I am going to say Paul Revere’s Ride for my speech.
Paul Revere's ride is, of course, from Tales of a Wayside Inn by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, starting with:
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
If Billy memorized the whole thing, that was quite a bit of memorization.
5.
As Alma says, it's a nice letter. Given the trouble Billy had at other times with finding things to write about in letters, I'm happily imagining his mother, Kathleen, standing behind him as he wrote. "Tell Aunt Alma about your garden." "Did you tell her about the birdhouse you made?" "Tell her about the chickens." And so on.
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