Arnold's Story: June 1, 1948 WEN

Bill Nevis writes to his son Arnold about Arnold's planned visit on July 4. Bill is excited to create some  space in their adjacent orchard for a game area — horseshoes, archery and croquet.

Hazel's health issue may be ongoing cancer treatments. 

We learn that Bill and the family did make it to Boston after all to visit Arnold at Harvard and to see Bill's birth place in North Boston during that East Coast trip to New York City.

Wallace is probably Henry A. Wallace, former Vice President and suspected communist sympathizer (for his conciliatory policies towards the Soviet Union and progressive views of public school desegregation, racial and gender equality, national health insurance, and other leftist ideas). 

He does end up purchasing an Airstream travel trailer and joining a travel club for holiday trips. They still had it in the 1960s when we visited California, but kept it in Hemet, California when they were not using it on the road. They drove it across the country in the very early 1960s when they visit Arnold and his family in Gainesville, Florida. I remember it parked in the back yard for a few weeks.

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Arnold's Story: June 1948 Veterans Administration

One of many of these Veterans Administration life insurance notices:

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Arnold's Story: June 1, 1948 Chuck Cutler

Chuck Cutler had visited Arnold in Boston and followed up with this letter.

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Leonard's Story: May 22, 1948

In his letter to his brother Arnold, Leonard outlines their ambitious camping trip through Canada and part of the northern U.S. With less detail he offers the same to his mother Hazel.

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Arnold's Story: May 19, 1948

Hazel's brother Ellwood Wolfe, his wife Rubye, and their children Jane and Walter stop by for a visit on their way home from Sansum Clinic in Santa Barbara. Bill and Hazel frequent mention going to this clinic for medical care. (The Sansum Clinic specialized in diabetes, so both Bill and his daughter Dolly were regular patients there.)

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Arnold's Story: May 13, 1948

A letter from Vera Cummings thanking Arnold for sending roses remembering her son Carl's death four years earlier. Carl was a close friend from high school in Glendale. Vera Cummings gifted a Limoges china plate to Arnold and his new bride Newlin several years later, in the 1950s. Someone in the family may still have that plate, although some twenty years ago it was dropped, it broke and had to be repaired with glue, so perhaps no one opted to keep the damaged plate. (The Cummings home at 813 N. Central Av., Glendale, is now a real estate business, the neighborhood having been absorbed into the nearby business district.)

Vera Cummings' description of Hazel Nevis arriving home with her hat on is accurate. She always wore a hat and gloves, well into the 1970s. Hazel was a notoriously bad driver. Her daughter-in-law Lucille said that she was indignant when accused of bad driving. Hazel always got into her car and adjusted the mirror first thing, then of course she checked her lipstick and hat and fixed her gloves. And generally without looking in the mirror a second time she would back up. One time she forgot to put the car in reverse so instead of backing out the garage at 501 E. Mountain St., she rammed the car through the wall of the garage. It went partially through that wall and stuck out the other side, on the second floor over the patio. 

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Leonard's Story: May 12–14, 1948

From this letter we learn that Bill Nevis has taken Hazel and Laura on a visit to New York City, where they spent time with Leonard and Pat. Leonard is now planning to go to school but may take a summer job before departing New York. Later in his life Leonard complained he had not been able to implement innovations to the family business because his father was stubbornly opposed to any changes, and at the same time, when he saw his brother Arnold able to attend medical school at Harvard, he decided he, too, wanted to go to medical school rather than continue in the family firm.

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Arnold's Story: April 20, 1948

1104 East Chestnut St., Glendale, was about a 10-minute drive from Dolly's parents' home on 501 East Mountain St., Glendale. At present though the two houses are separated by a freeway.

Due to her severe diabetes, Dolly has stopped working at the Department Store and has become a "housewife". Though she does not mention her "husband" Lee in this letter, I assume her "we" here refers to the two of them. Lee is not mentioned anymore after January 31, 1948, in the set of letters I have for this blog, I seem to be missing the letter Bill Nevis wrote about the discovery that Lee was already married in the state of Texas when he married Dolly, and he failed to get a divorce. When she learned that, Dolly moved back to her parents' house, but reconciled with Lee in a few months and moved to Bakersfield with him as he promised to obtain the divorce. When that did not happen, Dolly went to court to get the marriage annulled.

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Arnold's Story: April 16, 1948

This is a form letter from the Dean of Harvard Medical School, Committee on Scholarships. In a few months (July 20) we will see mention that Arnold won one of the scholarships.

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Arnold's Story: March 31, 1948

A friend, Fred E., works for the Caltech Alumni Association, and sends an official request for funds along with a note, in which he uses the nickname "Arnyface", or some such name.

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Arnold's Story: March 16, 1948

The Hearsts' ranch in McCloud was Wyntoon.

"Residential District" at McCloud, California (J. H. Eastman, WB-1441)

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Arnold's Story: March 8, 1948

Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) was an American Reformed theologian and professor at Union Theological Seminary. Rev. and Mrs. Alison Reid Bryan were Presbyterian missionaries in India.

The 1948 musical My Romance, with music by Sigmund Romberg and lyrics by Rowland Leigh opened in October 1948 on Broadway, was an adaptation of Edward Sheldon's 1913 play Romance. This performance would have been an out-of-town tryout before the Broadway opening.

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Arnold's Story: January 31, 1948

Arnold's handwriting is closer to print-script than cursive. Later in life he writes entirely in block letters. His cursive was nearly unintelligible. We see him sign this letter "Arn", though his nickname in general was "Arnie".

Virus "X" was an influenza outbreak in December 1947 and January 1948.

The Chocolate Soldier was a 1941 musical directed by Roy Del Ruth. It uses original music from the Oscar Straus 1908 operetta of the same name, which was based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1894 play Arms and the Man but using a plot from Ferenc Molnár's play The Guardsman. 

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a 1948 Western written and directed by John Huston. An adaptation of B. Traven's 1927 novel of the same name, set in the 1920s, it starred Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt and Walter Huston (the director's father).

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