June 26, 1933 - Monday

George went to the rifle range at Bonneville yesterday so I haven’t heard from him for two days. Steve came over before he left this morning. Has something on his mind.

Postmarked: June 26, 1933

Addressed to: George L. Hibbard, Vancouver Barracks, Vancouver, Washington, ROTC Camp

From: AE Powell, 1719 NE Knott St., Portland Oregon

Thursday

George darling,

It is one o’clock Monday morning but I couldn’t go to sleep until I have unloaded my thoughts to you. Steve didn’t say anything and there was no opportunity for me to make any revelation because we were always with some member of my family. He didn’t make any effort to be alone with me so he probably didn’t have anything to say which relieved me very much. However when he was leaving he said, “Annabelle, I am still optimistic.” I don’t know whether he was referring to our recent conversation or whether he was referring to some more remote correspondence. He seemed to enjoy the society of all of us so his desire to visit us may have been no more than a strong desire to see any good friends. He didn’t seem to think his trip down in the plane was anything out of the ordinary. It was more convenience for so short a visit and more interesting than a train. When he left he said that he hoped to see us more often in the future than we had in the past and nothing more definite than that.

Do you think, darling, that under the circumstances I didn’t do the right thing by not making an opportunity to tell him that I was in love with someone else? I am so afraid that you will think that I am a coward and that I am just rationalizing to stall of the evil day.  Or that I am a vain creature that wants to hang on to a suitor as long as I can. Maybe I have a guilty conscience in my sub-conscious mind that can see thru’ all my circles of reasoning to the real motive. But I know one thing that is firmly established in my conscious, subconscious, coconscious, and unconscious mind and every other state of my being and that is that I love only you, darling and I never will love anyone else. My whole heart is yours and no one else can ever share a tiny part of it. Good friends and my family have a warm place around my heart but the center itself is yours, dear.

Steve is just the same as he always was and I still have the same feeling of friendship for him but nothing more.

George, I wanted to see you so much today before you left. I almost felt as if you were going off to some distant land and I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to you. It leaves sort of a vacant feeling. I feel more relieved, clear, for having unloaded to you and now my eyelids are getting kind of heavy so I will say good night, dear. I will add some more on this letter before I mail it tomorrow.

Later on Monday Morning.

Six hours sleep, some breakfast, and a number of other things have happened since I wrote to you earlier this morning. Now I am on my way to market to buy a fat pig so I thought I would finish this letter to you so I could drop it in the mail box as I come home again jig-a-ti-jig. I had better stop that nonsense or you will think I didn’t get enough sleep last night or rather I mean this morning. But really that is a sign that I had plenty of good restful sleep that brought my better nature to the fore. I can sure take ‘um this morning. I bet I could keep you going this morning even if you are a big brave soldier that shoots a great big gun. Coma, dash, hyphen, or what ever it is that you use to denote a change in mood. The next paragraph is serious.

Maybe Steve knows what we wanted him to know after all, dear. Everything seems so vague and round about and not very straight forward, but I don’t mean to be sneaking, dear, it just seems to work out that way. What, I mean, by saying that maybe Steve knows now is that he came over this morning before I had gotten up and asked to see me. He said that he found that he had a little while before his plane left so he thought he would come out and say goodbye because it would be quite a while before we would see each other again. So we settled down on the bottom stairs for a visit because no one was up here and I couldn’t bring him up. We were talking along about ordinary things when he noticed my badge which I had changed from my pajamas to my house dress before going down and he said “Do you wear your sorority pin all the time day and night?” Very surprised like and I said “I wear that pin all the time but it isn’t my sorority pin but a fraternity pin” and he said “That must be true devotion” and I signaled assent and he left rather suddenly after that. Don’t you think he must be enlightened by now even if it was rather round about? I want to be straight forward, dear, but maybe you understand the situation. I guess I am kind of a coward at heart.

End of quotation marks, hyphen, coma or what ever it was we used. Now, soldier, let’s see you bag a couple of those enemy because you have to bring me a couple of their helmets to hang in our big game room where the rest of our stuffed beasts are.

I love you, dear

Annie.