Arnold's Story: May 24, 1950

Laura's joining the church may indicate her confirmation in the church.

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Leonard's Story: August 17, 1948

Bill Nevis writes to his son Leonard at General Delivery, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. I am curious what urgent matter Leonard would need to work with the American Foreign Legion on. 

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Arnold's Story: July 8, 1948

Hazel's enclosed letter from Leonard may be the one I posted from June 30. Whitehorse, California is not far from McCloud, so I assume Arnold is still working for the McCloud River Lumber Company, but at a remote lumber camp in Whitehorse.

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Arnold's Story: June 14, 1948

We learn from this letter that Hazel Wolfe was living in Albuquerque in 1914, years before she married Bill Nevis. (They married circa 1919 and moved to Bluewater, New Mexico, where Bill was operating a lime kiln and general store; later he became tax collector. Grants is the capital of Cibola County, twelve miles from Bluewater.)

From this letter we see that Bill Nevis had hosted a successful barbecue in his home for past commanders of the American Legion, Glendale post. 

Otherwise Hazel offers news from the neighborhood and local church.

next post  June 29, 1948

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Arnold's Story: June 2, 1948

Hazel is looking forward to Arnold's return in the summer. She and the family have recently visit her brother Ellwood and his family in Los Vegas. The "Clubs" would be dinner shows in night clubs by famous entertainers, not bars or dance clubs; Laura was still a child of 11 or 12. 

next post  June 8, 1948

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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.

next post  June 2, 1948 

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Arnold's Story: February 17, 1945

Hazel mentions scarcity of goods such as shirts during the war. And she uses points from her ration cards to purchase beef steak. 

next post  April 19, 1945

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Arnold's Story: August 17, 1944

Alongside the description of Les Wolfe Jr.'s military funeral, this letter mentions Hazel's youngest brother James Ellwood Wolfe, his wife Rubye Keller Wolfe, and their children Walter and Jane. 

I did not realize that Hazel considered herself a fundamentalist, but perhaps that designation had a less extreme interpretation in the 40s than it does today. Her views as a Presbyterian were largely quite mainstream, as I surmise from her letters, family remembrances and her large collection of books on religion. One family memory from the early 1970's was her annoyance at a commercial for Crest toothpaste in which children interrupt parents yelling "I have no cavities". Children were not to interrupt adults, in her opinion. She boycotted Crest after that.

Marine Raiders was a 1944 war movie showing a fictional depiction of the 1st Marine Raider Battalion and 1st Marine Parachute Battalion on Guadalcanal, recreation in Australia, retraining in Camp Elliott (where much of the film was made) and a fictional attack in the Solomon Islands. It starred Pat O'Brien, Robert Ryan, and Ruth Hussey.

Secrets of Scotland Yard was a 1944 espionage thriller based on a story "Room 40, O.B." by Denison Clift, about a British police detective uncovering a Nazi spy in Britain's cryptanalysis organization. 

next post  August 24, 1944 Al Grote

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Arnold's Story: July 31, 1944

Hazel is still using the old stationery with the West Fairview address. I don't know why Los Angeles businesses and department stores would be closed on July 31 and August 1 unless a severe cold season was keeping employees sick at home. 

next post  August 4, 1944

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Arnold's Story: April 28, 1944

A letter from Charles Cutler to Arnie, still training in the Army Air Force at Yale University:

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Arnold's Story: April 20, 1944

This is one of the few letters Hazel signs as Mom rather than Mother. She puts A.M. or P.M. or Afternoon on her letters, as with this morning letter. RIght into the Spring of 1950 the U.S. Post Office service offered twice daily residential delivery and pickup. The "Legion" cited below is the American Legion, of which Bill  Nevis was an officer.

I am not sure which photo this is, perhaps the one I have listed as circa 1945:

Arnold H. Nevis, circa 1945

Or it could be this one, where he looks a bit younger, which might predate the war:

Arnold H. Nevis, circa 1944

next post  April 27, 1944

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