Arnold's Story: August 4, 1950 MHN

Hazel writes Arnold with belated birthday wishes. She talks of her religion and its comfort in coping with Dolly's death. Leonard has an abscessed tooth. Bill plans a business trip to Chicago and the East Coast. Bill's sister Belle has high blood pressure and health issues. 

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Arnold's Story: July 26-31, 1950

Dolly's death seems to have turned both Hazel and Bill to their respective religions for comfort. Hazel is confident in her Presbyterian faith, and Bill, born and raised Catholic, may return to that church or explore the similar Episcopalian Church or even join his wife's church. 

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Arnold's Story: July 24, 1950

Hazel writes Arnold a few days after Dolly's funeral. She was buried in her wedding gown in Forest Lawn Cemetery, where eight years later, Arnold's first-born son will be buried (though eventually disinterred and moved to a cemetery in Florida to make run for Arnold's sister Laura in the 1990's).

The list of relatives mentioned in the letter include: Tony Nevis (Bill's brother), Tony's son Stanley Nevis and his wife Betty, Bill's sister Isabelle (Belle) Nevis Bettencourt, Bill's sister Mary Ann Nevis Silva, Bill's sister Della Nevis Gomes and her husband Henry, Hazel's brother Les Wolfe (Sr.) and his wife Lenore, and a number of Bill's nephews and nieces, including Amelia Gomes, Alvin Gomes, Alice Gomes, Laura Nevis Mello, Bob Mello, Jerry Mello, Laura Mello, Edwin Buddy Mello, Katherine (Catherine) Mello, Ray and Mary Gomes, and Hazel and Tom Batti. The others cited were Leonard's wife Pat's "Aunt Be" and "Uncle Dave" and neighbors Larry and Helen Gibney. The two businesses were Bill's company, the Ideal System Company and Wayne's Goss Cleaners.

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Arnold's Story: May 1, 1950 AHN

Ralph W. Sockman was a well known Methodist pastor, a frequent speaker on the weekly radio show, National Radio Pulpit, and a writer of several best-selling books on Christianity. 

"City Light" was film classic of 1931, a silent film produced and directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin.

next post  May 1, 1950 Dolly

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Arnold's Story: September 15, 1949

Rev. and Mrs. Joseph McNeill were Presbyterian missionaries in the Church's West Africa Mission. Spanish Guinea is now Equatorial Guinea.

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Arnold's Story: July 20, 1949

I did not find the newspaper clipping Hazel references. 

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Arnold's Story: June 1, 1949

I do recall seeing a couple of copper craft items stored in boxes in our home in Gainesville, Florida. I guess they might have been the result of Dolly's efforts, although Hazel mentioned that she and Pat, too, took a copper craft class. I do not think anyone kept them as we did not know their history.

Her diabetes is improving but she is going back soon to the Sansum Clinic in Santa Barbara. And she has a newfound love of God and church.

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Arnold's Story: July 23, 1948

Hazel Nevis writes her son Arnold from Santa Barbara, where her husband is being treated at the Sansum Clinic for diabetes. 

Arnold is working in Whitehorse, California, in a lumber camp to earn some extra money for his studies at Harvard Medical School. He has long expressed a desire to become a medical missionary (presumably in the Presbyterian Church, the family religion on Hazel's side), but in this letter there is a hint that he might be rethinking his plans. Hazel and Arnold shared a strong religious bent (along with Arnold's sisters/Hazel's daughters Dolly and Laura). Older brother Leonard was far less religious, perhaps even an atheist or at best an agnostic. Hazel's husband Bill grew up Roman Catholic but married outside that church when he wed Protestant Hazel, so he was denied mass at Catholic services through much of his life. Near the end of his life, Hazel converted to Catholicism so that Bill could have mass said at his funeral. She did not mind the conversion, and in fact enjoyed the religious conversations with the priests during that process; and as a grandmother she no longer minded signing the document in which she promises to raise her children in the Catholic faith.

(Hazel's pagination is off for the last three pages.)

next post  July 28, 1948

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