May 31, 1933 - Wednesday

Mom had a birthday dinner for June. She had Chuck and later the four of us went to hear Ted Fio Rito. During dinner “Mom” got 3 long distance calls from Mrs. Williams. Eleanor has to have a serious operation. Mom took the 1:25am train.

Has this ever been a very wonderful month. With Mom and June and Sleepy here and George and I doing so many things together. The weather hasn’t been so nice but everything else has.

A letter to George from his mother:

Hello Dear:

It will soon be your birthday dear and I am enclosing a little money from Dad and I. It’s very hard to buy a boy anything in the way of ties & etc. as he has his own ideas about things. So you can do with this money as you see fit. I am enclosing a poem that your Dad has created and hope you will like it.

The Kirkpatricks were here over Decoration Day and we had a nice visit. It is so cold today we have a furnace fire to keep warm.

I don’t know whether I told you that we sheared Jeff the other night and in the midst of the job the clippers broke down, so Dad and I took turns about cutting the other half of him with the old dull shears in the basement. He is a pretty looking sight, all over ridges, and Looks like the hair cut you once received down in Eugene when Dad and I were there with you only worse. The poor dog was very grateful when we were through. We had him on the workbench and he was so petrified with fear he could not move, and we never hurt him once. I was very provoked with him last night though. He got into the sunroom and on the little coffee table I and the very expensive dish that Mrs. Wellock had given me several years ago. It was full of chocolate creams and he ate them all up and knocked down the dish and broke it. Today he took all his bedding out for an airing. He is altogether too peppy for me. I can’t keep up with him at all.

The little rock plants are so pretty right now and the backyard is beautiful. The iris are all in bloom and the white shrubs, also. By the time you get home they will be all bloomed out I suppose.

Dad wanted to drive down to Eugene and give you a birthday dinner and have the Powells there also, but I told him I am quite sure you will all be very busy studying for your exams and perhaps it would not do for us to come, so we will not this time. As far as we know now Dad will be down after you Friday June 9^th, at any rate will write you again more definitely about it next week.

We both wish you a very happy happy day dear Sunday, June 4^th and not only this day but every day, a day of happiness.

Love and kisses,

Mother

The poem:

A blue eyed boy was given to us,

Twenty-one years ago today,

And over him we sure made a great big fuss,

So he seemed quite contented to stay.

We were made happy by this little boy,

And now to make him happy and glad he was here,

Was our greatest ambition and happiest joy.

And this we have tried to do each and every year.

We planned for his future and still are,

And our imagination has not been dimmed thru the years,

Our planning has been rewarded thus far,

And in our minds greater success appears.

He has been a loving and worthwhile pal, and true,

Sharing our troubles and pleasures as we shared his,

Always a smile to make us happy and a cheery laugh too,

When he rushed in from school with a bang and a whiz.

He’s off going to college now,

But soon he will be home again,

And then for a big Pow-Wow

All about Ann and When?

Dad

Many Happy Returns

May 30, 1933 - Tuesday

George's letter home:

Dear Mother,

Today is a holiday, and it is also about time I came through with a letter for you and Dad.

Last Friday, I went to the inter-fraternity council dinner and afterwards to its dance. The inter-fraternity council is an organization of all the presidents of the fraternities. Ann and I had a wonderful evening at the dance. Saturday dawned the first nice day of the year, and Ann and I went way up the river and spent the afternoon tramping around the country. Sunday, the Scabbard and Blades had their picnic at Riverside Park, and of course we were there. We didn’t leave there until four in the afternoon. About six in the evening, we went downtown to see the three Barrymores in Rasputin. My, but it was a wonderful picture; I am certainly glad I had the opportunity of seeing it. You see, that it was rather a full week-end.

Today, being a holiday, I should by all rights get out and show my patriotism for my country. Being an unpatriotic sole, however, I arose this morning with firm resolutions to study all day. I did studied for about two and half hours, but then a whole fleet of Army planes landed out at the airport. Nothing would do but for me to go along with the rest and see them. I certainly don’t regret going either. When we got there, there were six Army pursuit planes lined up on the field, and by the time we left there were thirty three planes of every description lined up on the field. The bombing planes were so big that I would walk right under the lower wings and still have room to spare. It sounded as though the whole world was coming to an end out there. Some other Army planes flew over on their way to Portland, and they dove at the field as they passed. One of the fliers remarked that they were going two-hundred miles an hour and it certainly looked like it.

I know how much money I will need this month, and I am sorry to say it is way over what I led you to expect. All together, I owe $36.49, but seven dollars of that doesn’t have to be paid until I return home. I didn’t have enough money to pay for all of Ann’s badge, so Bill Russell gave it to me. The badge isn’t here yet, unless it is in the post office by now.  Thursday, Eddy Field is going to let me have his car, and Ann and I are going on a picnic for two. I shall give it to her at the picnic; I can hardly wait.

I ran into something else that will be expensive today. I bit into a bone and cracked one of my teeth. The tooth had apparently decayed underneath where it couldn’t be perceived, and this just brought it to light. I will go downtown Saturday and have it fixed; I hope it won’t be too expensive.

I must be at camp on June 13, and I have a list of everything I must take. There is nothing that I must buy. We get $.70 a day for the six weeks that we are there and $.30 a day for the rest of the summer until school starts for doing nothing. That means my summer will not be an entire failure financially even though it will not be very much.

That is about all for this time; I will write you later on when there is more news. I am afraid that there will be very little to tell you from now on through, for the term is fast drawing to a close.

Love, 

Brother.

May 27, 1933 - Saturday

This was our last dance while we are in college, I guess. It was the past and present President’s dance at the Beta house.  June went with Chuck. George and I seem more in love all the time.

Note to reader: Next diary entry is May 31.

May 26, 1933 - Friday

Letter from Ann's father:

Dearest Ann,

Your grand letter of April 26^th came in the mail yesterday via Los Angeles. In reading it and receiving your thanks in advance for the diploma you are about to receive, I was reminded that I have sent you no graduation present or even a proper letter of congratulations and best wishes. I did, about a month ago, write you a sort of pre graduation letter conveying to you our joy and pleasure in your college career and wishing you a very satisfying and happy commencement.

No for your graduation present from me you will have to accept the presence of Mama and June in Eugene for the grand event and I am sure they will select something material that is appropriate and that you can accept a coming from all of us.

Your tears during your last initiation were proof of the grand time you have had in college and your reall appreciation of the life you have lived during the last four years. Reading your letter brought to mind those years in nineties at Emporia Kansas when the days were filled with glory and the nights with joyous adventure, the town was full of wonderful young friends and companions, each meal at the old students mess was a banquet graced by the presence of the most wonderful young men and women in the world and I would not have exchanged my lot with anyone in this big, wide, wonderful world. Toward the end of my senior year the exquisite joy of life was so blended with the sadness of contemplating the end of it all that I lived in a haze of alternating exaltation and depression. I was sustained however through this period of emotional crisis by the thrilling adventure awaiting my graduation, a trip across the Rockies to the fabled wonderland of California, then across the mighty Pacific, discovered by Balboa and conquered by Magellan, to the romance of old Manila, the tropics and the orient.

Having traveled the shining highway myself I know and appreciate the life you are living now as I write these lines to you. Your capacity to enjoy every moment of the passing days has reached a climax and the glory of that climax is reflected in my heart half way around the world.

Your diploma, Ann darling, is a grand thing to achieve but the associations you have found, the friends you have made, the character you have molded, the life you have lived during the last four years are exceedingly grander things. For the rest of your life you will find that they are among your principal assets and the memory of these years will ever be one of your keenest pleasures.

Of course, my dear, I know that I am “telling you” what you already know and understand but I am sure you don’t mind my telling you. As Mama has taught me, what is the use of having fine thoughts about you if I don’t share them with you.

I love you!

Pop

George's letter home:

Dear Family,

My last examination will be at ten o’clock, Friday morning, June 9, 1933. Anytime after that is alright for me to come home. Ann does not graduate until Monday, June 12, 1933. I am not going to stay over for her little affair, however for the Chi Psi picnic will come off on that day. I should be at the picnic and then too, the little soldier boy must be in Vancouver the very next day (June 13, 1922).

As far as present for Ann is concerned, I have not thought that far ahead yet. Presents don’t seem to come into my life very enthusiastically when it is my turn to buy them. It is not that I do not like to give, but that I have not the gold with which to do it with. I have a Chi Psi sweetheart badge on its way, and that can very well serve for a graduation present and more too. I will pick out some nice romantic evening in a canoe and present it to her. That stuff is all poppy cock to me, but the feminine heart seems to revel in such things.

This evening we were going to the inter fraternity council dance, tomorrow I shall study most of the day, and Sunday, we shall go to the Scabbard and Blade picnic.

Ann and I opened the hope chest that her mother brought back to us (she says us now), and it is the most beautiful thing imaginable. It is made of camphor wood, and it is all hand carved. The carving depicts some scene from oriental religion. It is really a magnificent thing. I watched them unwrap going away presents one whole evening, and they certainly fared well. I guess it was very hard to pull away from friends of a lifetime.

Today is the first nice one that we have had for a long time. The sun is shining for all it is worth, and the old rain seems to be lost forever. I hope it is. I should certainly like to have a little fun out of doors this term before leaving.

Just keep the yard going a little longer and I will be home to take care of it.

Love,

Brother

Note to reader: The chest George describes is the chest I have inherited containing all these letters and diaries.

May 21, 1933 - Monday

George's letter home:

Dear Family,

Here it is ten o’clock sunday morning and I have just finished a big breakfast of bacon and eggs. The reason for my lateness in arising is that we had our spring informal dance last evening. It was at the Eugene Hotel. We had it all decorated up with spring flowers, and it was the nicest Chi Psi dance I have ever been to.

This week brings me another siege of hours examinations. Soon, though, we will be into the finals; and that is something to really worry about. This term has gone so swiftly, it seems to me that it is impossible for it to be nearly over.

I don’t know how I am going to get all my stuff home this year. Every year, I accumulate more and more things until I need a truck to get me home now. Maybe you can suggest some way for me to arrive with all my belongings. It is certainly going to be nice to be near home for a change. For about three years now, I have been practically divorced from you.

That is about all. I will write a little later in the week when there is some more news.

Love,

Brother

May 20, 1933 - Sunday

The Scabbard and Blake picnic was today. It was out at Riverside. June went with Stan. It was a good picnic. It was a Dutch lunch including beer. Went to a show later.

Note to Reader: Another gap in the diary. The next entry is May 27.