Pacific Posts

Saturday, March 6, 2021

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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Friday, March 5, 2021

Arnold's Story: July 6, 1948

Northwest Mutual Life Insurance Company is enticing Arnold to purchase a pension plan by sending him a leather pocket memorandum book:

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Arnold's Story: July 1948 Veterans Administration

Another Veterans Administration National Service Life Insurance premium:

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Thursday, March 4, 2021

Leonard's Story: June 30, 1948

Crown Point Campground is in the Adirondacks. The Dixon Pencil Corp. may be the Dixon Ticonderoga Company, an office supplier famed for its Ticonderoga pencil.

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Arnold's Story: Oregon

Some undated photos from circa 1945–1948. Two are from Multnomah Falls, Oregon, so I suppose the others could be from Oregon as well, since Arnold's friend appears to be in the same clothes as in the Multnomah photo. If these pictures are from 1945, Arnold and his friend might have been on leave; but with Arnold in civilian clothes in the first photo, these might instead be later — perhaps summer 1948, when Arnold mentions having visited Oregon during his time working for the McCloud Lumber Company, though Multnomah Falls is another four and an half hour drive beyond Medford, Oregon, which according to the letter he had visited with a big group. However, he does not mention seeing the Multnomah waterfalls in that correspondence.

Arnold Nevis, circa 1948

Multnomah Falls, Oregon, circa 1948 (photo by Arnold Nevis)

flower fields, circa 1948 (photo by Arnold Nevis)

dahlias, circa 1948 (photo by Arnold Nevis)

flower fields, circa 1948 (photo by Arnold Nevis)

I do not know if this postcard is related to the trip to Multnomah:

Rose Festival Entrance, Queen's Court, Lambert Gardens, Portland, Oregon

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Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Arnold's Story: June 29, 1948

Arnold and his friends are now in McCloud, California, working at the McCloud River Lumber Co. Three of them are planning a road trip to Glendale, where Arnold's parents will host them over the Fourth of July weekend. Arnold will return to McCloud via airplane, not with his friends.

He mentions having visited Medford, Oregon, and its House of Mystery (also called the Oregon Vortex).

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previous post June 14, 1948

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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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Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Arnold's Story: June 10, 1948

Arnold and his friends are driving a Packard luxury car across country from Boston to northern California.

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Arnold's Story: June 9, 1948

A card probably from Bill McCord:

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Monday, March 1, 2021

Leonard's Story: June 8, 1948

In the 1990s Leonard told me about this job on Long Island; he exaggerated a bit and implied it was for the summer, but we see here it is for a week or two. His wife at the time, Pat, assisted the gardener — whether for pay or just for something to do, I do not know.

The Beau Pré Estate in Oyster Bay Cove, New York, was built by an heir to the Woolworth family fortune Helena Woolworth McCann and her first husband Charles McCann as wedding gift for their daughter Constance Woolworth McMullan and her first husband Wyllys Rosseter Betts. It was a 1928 Normandy-style Long Island Gold Coast manor. With her second husband Joseph Vincent McMullan she was raising three children from her first marriage, including two sons Wyllys Eliot Godfrey Betts (age 14 in the summer of 1948) and Charles Rossetter Woolworth Betts (age 13), at Beau Pré ('beautiful meadow' in French). Leonard was hired to tutor the boys, and having earlier decided to turn down the job to depart on their camping trip sooner, he was persuaded to take the job temporarily until a permanent tutor could arrive and take over later in the summer.

One story Leonard related to me from that time was that Mr. McMullan would ask the boys challenging history questions at the dinner table; Leonard figured out that the questions always came from a trivia column in a newspaper (presumably the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal), so he ensured the boys read that column to prep for the dinnertime inquisition. Mr. McMullan figured out he was now busted and the questioning stopped.

next post June 9, 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.

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Sunday, February 28, 2021

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.