Arnold's Story: August 4, 1944

This letter contains the sad news about Les Junior's death in a plane crash on his return from battle in Italy. Les Jr. is Hazel's brother's son and Arnold's cousin. I think I never met any of the Wolfe relatives, and I do not know why.

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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. 

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Arnold's Story: July 29, 1944

While Arnold was in college, he spent his summers working at a lumber camp. He used to keep his scratchy wool plaid lumberjack shirt in his closet into the early 1980s, and I think each of his sons wore it at some point until we got too big for his shirt. Arnold had a slim build, but none of his sons were so slight of build, so by age 14–15 we had already gotten too large to wear it. I assume that McCloud is the location of that lumber camp; perhaps it was the famed McCloud River Lumber Company he worked in.

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Arnold's Story: July 24, 1944

Arnold has recently received his commission in the Army Air Forces in Technical Training for radar and now moves on from Yale to Harvard for officer training.

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Arnold's Story: July 9, 1944

Long Distance phone calls were quite expensive in the 1940s and remained so for decades, so letters were the more common means of communication. Hazel crossed off the street address of the letterhead, so I guess she is using some old stationery from before they moved to Mountain Street. 

Arnold finished his Army Air Forces communications training at Yale University, got commissioned as an officer, and headed to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for more instruction. At the time, the Army was obsessed with intelligence testing and Arnold was a very good test taker apparently. 

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Arnold's Story: June 28, 1944

This letter from Hazel Nevis to Arnold reveals that Leonard is at home on leave.

The Republican Convention that year nominated Thomas E. Dewey and running mate John W. Bricker. By the way, Bill and Hazel Nevis were solid Republicans until Richard M. Nixon ran a nasty and ultimately successful campaign for Senate in 1950 against Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas. They were so turned off by Nixon's distasteful tactics (for which he acquired the nickname "Tricky Dick") that they registered to vote as Democrats after that. I do not know if they changed parties back again, but I assume so.

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Arnold's Story: June 18, 1944

The Nevis family correspondence shows that sometimes letters to one person were occasionally forwarded to another. This one is written to Leonard, who was fighting in the Philippines, then forwarded to Arnold, who was still in communications training in Connecticut. 

Aunt Belle was Arnold and Leonard's paternal aunt Belle Nevis Bettancourt (Isabelle or Isabel or Bella). Alvin is her son, so their older cousin by some ten years.

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Arnold's Story: May 26, 1944

Hazel Nevis writes on May 26 with news from the neighborhood families. Arnold Nevis also graduated from Herbert Hoover High School in Glendale, so presumably he and "Johnny" Eggleston were classmates or else they knew each other from the neighborhood.

John E. Eggleston, Glendale News-Press

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Arnold's Story: May 24, 1944

Dolly Nevis is about a year younger than her brother Arnold and more than two years younger than their eldest sibling Leonard.

an undated photo of Dolly Nevis from the time of World War II

next post  May 26, 1944

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Arnold's Story: May 14, 1944

Hazel Nevis writes to her son Arnold on Mother's Day, 1944. 

next post  May 24, 1944

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