1934-07-29: ​​~TOUR STOPS~---images---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
​This page is not a currently a stop in any Tour.  But it's still worth your attention!
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1934-07-29​: ​tour stops---~IMAGES~---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1934-07-29​: tour stops---images---~AUDIO~---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
Sorry, I haven't yet recorded the document.
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1934-07-29: ​tour stops---images---audio---~TRANSCRIPT~---notes---links---site navigation
South Hadley, Mass.
July 29, 1934.

Dear Kathleen:

With a small family this summer I ought to be able to write letters but I do not manage it.  I really have not been here very much and do not expect to be here very long.  I did not come until June 30th after I finished Entrance Examinations in New York.  Then I went back to South Hadley for week to meet with the Board of Admission when they were going over the lists of candidates for college after the examination results were in.  It took from Saturday morning until Wednesday afternoon, but I waited until Friday to have a chance to drive down with Miss Higley (our Alumnae Secretary) and Mr. Mills who were to spend the week-end with us.  Eva came June 22nd and got the house in order before I arrived.

Eva and I are planning to drive to Ohio in August, leaving here about the 7th and returning the last of the month or early in September.  If we could rent Fernbank for August we would leave on the 1st, but so far we have had only one nibble.  We did not advertise until recently.  We are going to Washington, Penn. first to visit Aunt Rebecca.  She is now 87 and is the last of Mother's family.  I don't know whether or not Laura sent you work that Uncle John Provines died in June.  Aunt Rebecca seems to be well and vigorous; I visited her last summer and had a good time with her.  She is full of interest in everything and has interesting comments to make.  We also want to visit some second cousins, Grace Hanlin and Rachel Crawford, who live on a farm near Steubenville, and then go on to Canton to see Laura and visit some of our old friends.

Fred was here for a few days the last of June until after July 4th and busied himself with various good works and with packing up his possessions.  His appointment at Medfield is over, as the doctor for whom he was substituting has returned from England.  Fred has gone to Rockwood, Canada, where Sibyl has been for two months or so.

This has been a warm summer here, but not really uncomfortable as it was in South Hadley when I left there ten days ago.  The day we left the humidity was 96 per cent with the temperature 94°.  One of my friends from College has just driven to her old home in Nebraska; she said they were living in the basement as it was 104° on their veranda at 7:30 P.M. the day she arrived.

We have been having considerable fog lately; it is very foggy this morning.  We had had no rain until yesterday.  Eva had gone over to the Clapps to take them for a drive to celebrate Miss Harriet's birthday and when it rained she thought they would not want to go, but they did not let the rain stop them.  Miss Mary has been very frail but she was perfectly willing to go riding in the rain.

Dorothy Stewart has the corner room this summer; she said that one morning before breakfast she saw 10 different kinds of birds from her window.

What is Billy going to do next year?  I did not know that he had finished school, but if he won a half scholarship it sounds as if he had finished.  I shall be very glad to provide the other half of the scholarship - I would love to do it.  I am sure he will be a credit to his family.

Dr. and Mrs. Meyer are here as usual.  The Doctor is in good health and fine spirits.  Mrs. Meyer is a busy as usual.  Dr. Meyer brought me in an article on hardiness in plants yesterday.

I have been devoting my spare afternoons to painting, not art but usefulness.  I have painted the ceiling of the living-room and the hall, but the hall has had only one coat.  It all has to have a coat of sizing first.  Eva did the whole of the bathroom, walls and ceiling while I was in South Hadley, with some assistance from Dorothy Stewart.  I have put the sizing on two bedrooms and hope that I shall get around to painting then.  I don't feel like a gifted painter; I am not agile in leaping from one table to another and I manage to finish with considerable paint on my face.  So far I have managed to keep it out of my eyes; glasses are a help.  When I was doing the living-room I regretted that the room was so large.  Eva has also painted the stove, the three floor lamps and the fire-irons and screen.

Ethel Jackson and her friend Miss Gould who runs the Sunnyside Day Nursery in Boston were here last week staying over one night on their way from West Yarmouth to Maine.  Miss Rhodehouse has also been here for one night.

Miss Turner and Miss Haywood are both here this summer and were in a few minutes this morning.  Four of our South Hadley friends stopped in on a tour of the Cape - a three day trip - and they stopped to see them.

The diving raft has not been out this summer; it is lying on the beach looking much dilapidated.  I read in the Log that the M.B.L. will not take care of it this summer.  I think that they found it very expensive last summer; there were so many storms.  So far we have had no surf in the bay, except a very mild one last Sunday.  This would have been a cheaper summer than last.

Eva and I are going to Falmouth to dinner, so I shall stop and get dressed.

Is Will still in Texas?  I might answer his birthday letter if I had his address.  If he is still there please drop me a card.

With much love to all the family,

Alma
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1934-07-29​: ​​​tour stops---images---audio---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
South Hadley, Mass.
July 29, 1934.
Alma's typing fingers must have been on autopilot, because she is clearly writing this letter from Woods Hole.

2.
I did not come until June 30th after I finished Entrance Examinations in New York.
Interesting, I didn't know Aunt Alma did this.  My maternal grandfather, a high school history teacher and college counsellor, also went to New York annually for this.  Some sort of grading or assessment of the exams, but I don't know exactly what was involved.

​3.
Then I went back to South Hadley for week to meet with the Board of Admission when they were going over the lists of candidates for college after the examination results were in.
Also interesting.  So applicants didn't know until late June or early July if they got in?  In my day it was mid April.

​4.
Eva and I are planning to drive to Ohio in August, leaving here about the 7th and returning the last of the month or early in September.
Here's Eva's letter about the trip: There's also a letter from Alma about the trip that I haven't uploaded yet.

5.
We are going to Washington, Penn. first to visit Aunt Rebecca.  She is now 87 and is the last of Mother's family.  I don't know whether or not Laura sent you work that Uncle John Provines died in June.
Aunt Rebecca and Uncle John are in the Provines & Gracey chapter.

​6.
We also want to visit some second cousins, Grace Hanlin and Rachel Crawford, who live on a farm near Steubenville
Grace Hanlin is in the Provines & Gracey chapter, but I'm not familiar with Rachel Crawford yet.

7.
Fred was here for a few days the last of June until after July 4th and busied himself with various good works and with packing up his possessions.  His appointment at Medfield is over, as the doctor for whom he was substituting has returned from England.  Fred has gone to Rockwood, Canada, where Sibyl has been for two months or so.
This is surprising to me.  AG (Fred's daughter) said that Fred lost his job at the Westboro State Hospital when Curley was elected governor, but that election was not until November 1934.  Evidently at this time Fred was no longer working at the Westboro State Hospital.  Puzzling.

8.
Dorothy Stewart has the corner room this summer
​I think this must be the room off of the living room at Fernbank.

9.
What is Billy going to do next year?  I did not know that he had finished school, but if he won a half scholarship it seems as if he had finished.  I shall be very glad to provide the other half of the scholarship - I would love to do it.  I am sure he will be a credit to his family.
Billy was born in 1917, so at this time he was 17 years old.  He must have skipped a grade.  The half-scholarship was to the University of Chicago, where Alma got her PhD.  See: Will contributed financially quite a lot to Alma's education, and now here is Alma offering to contribute to Will's son's education.  Nice.

​10.
Dr. and Mrs. Meyer are here as usual.
Woods Hole regulars, listed in the Non-family page for Woods Hole folks.  I think Dr. Meyer would have been in his late seventies at this time.

11.
Eva did the whole of the bathroom, walls and ceiling while I was in South Hadley, with some assistance from Dorothy Stewart.
I keep wondering, uncharitably, if Eva totally fouled things up and needed Dorothy Stewart to clear up the mess.  I have no evidence on which to base this speculation, but "some assistance" just sounds sort of deliberately vague to me.

12.
I don't feel like a gifted painter; I am not agile in leaping from one table to another and I manage to finish with considerable paint on my face.
Gosh how I enjoy imagining Alma leaping like a ballerina around the furniture.

13.
Ethel Jackson and her friend Miss Gould
​I need to ask AG about Ethel Jackson, and see if she knows how it was that Alma knew Ethel.

14.
Miss Turner and Miss Haywood
These must be South Hadley friends, but I don't know anything about them, except that Miss Turner's name sounds familiar.

​15.
The diving raft has not been out this summer; it is lying on the beach looking much dilapidated.  I read in the Log that the M.B.L. will not take care of it this summer.
I figure the Stokey kids enjoyed using the diving raft at the MBL beach when they were at Fernbank the previous year.  I assume that the MBL beach was a few houses down from the (as yet unbought and unnamed by Gladys Green) Vagabond House.

16.
Is Will still in Texas?  I might answer his birthday letter if I had his address.  If he is still there please drop me a card.
Yes, Will was still in Texas, hoping in vain to become to an oil millionaire.
And what a pity that, as far as I know, we don't have Will's birthday letter.  Alma had turned 57 on June 17.
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