August 31, 1933 - Thursday

Postmarked Sept. 1, 1933, Oakland Calif.

Addressed to GLH, Hotel Stevens, Chicago

Letterhead: Pacific Steamship Lines, Serving the Pacific Coast, On board

From AEP

Thursday

George dear,

Boy, are we getting the old roll this morning but I feel fine. But I’ll admit that I did feel kind of urpy (sic) yesterday however I sat clear thru all my meals. June got up in the middle of lunch and tore back up on deck and all she had for dinner was a sandwich in her stateroom. This morning it is almost ten and she is still in bed. I don’t know whether she is still sleepy or whether it is something else that keeps her there.

I have had more of a chance to see the passengers this morning altho’ June and I have made very few acquaintances. The boat seems to be over run with children and all of them are such cute ones. There are so many that are still in the early stages of walking and talking. There is one chubby little boy that has the most beautiful golden tan and one sweet little girl with lovely blond curls. Her father and mother are a darling couple that are as proud as can be of their child. But she seems to be the only child on board that has both her father and mother with her. There are many mothers traveling alone with the children. There are several of them that I feel so sorry for. They look as tho’ they felt like a dishrag and they have such active children that they have to jump up after all the time. It surprises me when little children get sick because they tear around so I don’t see how they can feel the motion of the boat. But there is one little girl that has evidently and she got so sick she just howled.  I’ve heard that there is a man on board that is very sick. I heard one of the cabin boys saying that he had been on the boat seven years and he had never seen anybody so sick. I was talking to a couple of ladies about another lady in one of their cabins that was so sick and one of their little girls piped up with “I bet you wouldn’t like it if someone made fun of you when you were sick!”

There is a darling old couple on board that have a couple of deck chairs near ours on deck. I hope we are like them. They are together all the time and seem to be having the best time. Evidently they have done a lot of traveling and they get a huge kick out of it. They giggle and seem to find so much to amuse them.

Then of course we have our bride and groom. Soon after we got on board Tuesday night we heard much yelling and saw much throwing of rice so that’s how I know. Your father said he knew the groom. I don’t know whether I know which couple it is or not. I think I do but there are so many on board that look like bride and groom.

Oh, yes, and we have our shipboard romance, too. Nothing is lacking on this voyage. She is a tall slender striking blond (June says she bets she’s dumb) and he is very dark. They are both traveling with their mothers.

Then we have our quota of maiden ladies that march vigorously around the deck, loving fresh air and sea voyages. You know the kind.

There are a bunch of white coated negros (sic) on board who act as waiters during meals, as cabin boys during the day and as porters and red caps while we are in port.

There darling, I think I have given you a cross section of the boat. But I didn’t tell you about the captain. He is a typical captain, fat and jolly. I noticed that he has USNR after his name.

Last night in the middle of the night the night porter came in to close our porthole. The waves were getting pretty high. He said the boat was going the same way the waves were and she couldn’t keep ahead of them. He said, ”That waters pretty cold and you wouldn’t want it splashing in on you.”

This morning at breakfast we got the Daily Radio news. It includes world news from Germany, London, and San Francisco but needless to say it was all very brief.

Darling I wish you were here to share everything with me. I see things that are amusing and I want so much to turn to you and point it out or tell you. It’s just sickening to see a man and a girl walking around the deck arm in arm. I get so jealous. Gool-ee, it’s all I can do to keep myself from chewing them to little tiny pieces. O, and George there was the loveliest moon over the water last night. Lover, I wish you could have seen it. There is nothing more beautiful than moonlight on the water particularly the ocean.

San Francisco at 7 tomorrow morning. I love you, dear.  Annie

August 30, 1933 - Wednesday

Postmarked Sept. 1, 1933, Oakland Calif.

Addressed to GLH at the Hotel Stevens, Chicago

From AEP

Wednesday morning

George dearest,

We managed to get away yesterday without a mishap. I wrote you a note yesterday afternoon and then forgot to mail it. I took it down to the boat with me and was going to ask someone to mail it for me and then I forgot. We stopped in at Astoria this morning so don’t be stunned when you see the postmark on it. There is a mailbox on the boat so I will mail you a letter today and tomorrow but it probably won’t go until we get to San Francisco but at least I will have had my little daily chat with you. Yesterday I got a letter and a card from you. You had been visiting a lot of big commercial concerns and factories. What are you going to do, turn businessman on me? I’ll have none of that my dear man, come, come.

I am writing this letter in the social hall and the desks are at the top of the stairs down into the dinning salon and it is still breakfast time so I have been watching people go down to breakfast. A very interesting crowd to watch but I haven’t met anybody yet and I haven’t seen anybody yet that I thought I would be particularly interested in meeting.

Sleepy and I got up early. It was about six fifteen when I opened my peepers the last time. The first time I woke up this morning was at four thirty when we were docking at Astoria. Sleepy and I came on deck at about quarter to seven and watched the tugs playing around the dock. It is cold and rainy this morning. So we paced the deck until the breakfast gong rang at seven thirty. We tried to get June up several times but she would just groan and roll over.

Yesterday afternoon when your father took me down to the boat, we were coming across the Broadway bridge and he pointed out the boat to me. I said O, ha, ha, ha, you can’t fool me. That boat’s too small. But sure enough that was the boat and here we are. It is a small boat and our cabin is on the third deck down so imagine if you can what that motion is going to be like. To make matters worse we are right near the kitchen. But I think we will get along all right and I think I am going to like it much better than the train.

June and I were so pleased because so many people came down to the boat to see us off. Mrs. Meyers and her son, all the Wylies, Mary Dixon and Ruth, Dorothy and Carol, Nancy Richards (friend of June’s), Doro and Jean, and then your father brought us down. We got down to the boat about eight put our things in the cabin and then went up on deck.

Doro and Jean were already there. Doro brought me a box of fudge. She said it seemed like old times making fudge for me only she felt as tho’ she ought to wrap it for mailing and put Crater Lake on it. The Wylies brought us each a box of candy, too.  Everybody waited until the boat pulled away. They passed out streamers on the boat and we threw them to our friends on the dock. My but it was hard to say goodbye to all of them. Your father helped us so much when we were getting away.

We haven’t hit the ocean yet. That’s when we will get the roll. I hope this dark rainy weather doesn’t mean that it is storming outside. I saw Adele just before I left and she is just itching to get up so I guess that’s a pretty good sign. Darling, write me often this next year. I miss you terribly.

Love, Annie

Postmarked Aug 31, 1933, Bend, Oregon

Addressed to GLH, 5836 Race Ave., Chicago, Ill. c/o I.H. Wells

Aug. 30, 1933

Hello Darling,

Judging from your letter, which Dad has just forwarded to me, you don’t like the big city. You don’t know dear how much I appreciate your subscribing for the Journal for me. This shall be my birthday gift from you, now don’t spend any more money on me, please, as you must go slow. Ann, June & Sleepy left Portland last night at 9PM Aug 29^th. They will arrive in San Francisco about the same time Mr. & Mrs. Powell and Eleanor will get there. And then I think they will go to Clear Lake. Ann said she would leave a forwarding address so I know she will get your mail until she can give you her new address.

I can’t seem to scratch for any news from home. As I am in Bend & Dad just said in his letter he and Grandma had a very pleasant trip down.

I fixed Grandma’s flower bed today and made my first cake in a wood oven and it turned out OK.

How are you getting by in the heat? I thought perhaps you did not take enough shirts with you.

Please let me know when you expect to be in Portland so I can plan to be there at that time also.

The nights are real cold here and we had a fire last evening to keep warm. Oregon has been having some terrible forest fires and the place is covered with smoke. Millions of dollars of timber have been destroyed and much of it around Forest Grove.

I must drop a line to Dad. Remember me to Mrs. Wells and love and kisses to you dear.

Mother

I wonder if you got the pajamas I mailed at the Stevens hotel???

August 29, 1933 - Tuesday

Post Card

Postmarked Aug 30, 1933 - Astoria Oregon

To GLH, 5836 Race Ave, Chicago, Ill.

From AEP, 2901 Piedmont Ave. Berkeley, Calif.

Tuesday

Dear George,

The boat leaves at nine tonight. Your father took me down at four thirty to put some of our bags on. He is coming back at seven thirty to take us down and then we leave darling. It certainly is good of him to go to all that bother. It’s getting rather exciting.

Love, Annie

August 29, 1933

Hello Family,

Another week is going by filled with sight seeing. The days don’t fly so fast now, for sightseeing soon becomes just like everything else. I shall be glad when the convention starts.

Jim and I drove down to the gangster part of town today and parked the car. This is where the famous Maxwell Street market is located. It is supposed to be the seat of more criminals than any other place in the world. If you can picture a market on the plan of our Yamhill market and the paint into it, one third the room, five times the people, nothing but decayed fruits and stinking clothes for sale, little kids urinating on the sidewalk an flies so thick they bounce off you together with a stench that nearly suffocates, then you have a part of that indescribable filth. As you walk down the narrow passage way between the stalls and stumble over the garbage, the dirty sales people grab you by the arm and try to drag you into their places. My sales resistance is perfect in a place like that, though.

Jim and I are fast becoming an authority on the city of Chicago. There really aren’t many more obvious places for us to stick our noses into any more. The end of this week we are going to go up to Milwaukee on the boat. That will be fun.

I am fine with the exception of a bad cold and a sore throat. They always pass, though.

Love, Brother

August 28, 1933 - Monday

Postmarked Aug 29, 1933, Portland Oregon

Addressed to GLH, 5836 Race Ave, Chicago, Ill. c/o I. H. Wells

From AEP, 2901 Piedmont Ave, Berkeley, Calif.

Monday, Aug 28

George darling,

Pardon me for ever bawling you out for not writing. I got two lovely letters from you today, exciting thrilling letters! You must have had a wonderful time going over the University of Chicago campus with Dr. Conklin.  Sweetheart, I was so pleased. I only wish I could have been with you. O, what a wonderful time you are having! June and I had dinner with Mrs. Meyers tonight and she asked how you were and if you were having a good time in Chicago. Everybody asks about you, dear. All my friends are your friends. They all like you. Thank you for the pictures of the University. They look perfectly beautiful. Did it give you sort of a thrilling feeling to see that couple on there golden wedding anniversary? I wonder where we will be when that happens to us. Do you think you can stand me that long? I love you, dear.

This will probably be the last real letter that I can send you from Portland, dear. Tomorrow I will probably be too busy to send you more than a note. When I get down to Berkeley I’ll start sending my letters to the hotel for the 6, 7, and 8^th. If I can figure right and know the day that you are going to be in Portland I will have a letter there. O, goodness I forgot I will have several letters waiting there for you because that is the only place I will have to send my letters while you are on your way home. Because I sort of have to write to you, dear if you don’t mind because it is an outlet to my feelings.

Tonight we had a lovely dinner over at Mrs. Meyers. It was awfully sweet of her to think of us. She is leaving soon, too, to go back to Condon to School.

Pop was supposed to come in today but I don’t know whether he did or not. We didn’t get a telegram or anything altho’ I sort of halfway expected one. He said that they might be delayed so maybe he didn’t get in when he planned. We got a letter from Mom too, today. She didn’t say much except that she was anxious for us to get there. I think I told you didn’t I, that they have made plans for June to go to school in Berkeley and live with the Cresaps? We can come after her and bring her home for weekends. Mom is still worrying about the cooking. She seems to fail to realize that I am going to take full charge of that.

June is out again with Bill tonight He was waiting for us when we got back from Mrs. Meyers and he and June went off to a show. They invited me but I gracefully declined and spend a very lovely evening talking to Ellen Jean and Mrs. Bowman in front of the fire mind you. It got that cold today.

Lover, I do so hate to leave Portland. It seems so far away from you. I won’t cry when the boat leaves, I am quite sure. I’ll bet you would be embarrassed clear in Chicago. I’m going to try so hard to get up at Christmas. If I could come up the same day you get home and stay until about a day or two before or from the day after until you go back I would have about a week with you. I miss you so much ----

All my love,  Ann

Postmarked Aug 28, 1933 – Ann Arbor Mich.

Addressed to Mr. George Hibbard, 1503 E 36^th St, Portland, Ore – readdressed to 5836 RaceAve., Chicago, Ill.

From Chi Psi Fraternity

Wild Building

314 S. State Street

Ann Arbor, Michigan

August 28, 1933

Dear Brother Hibbard:

I have the Eta Delta budget which you have prepared for next year and have the following comments to make on it.

On page one you estimate provision cost for next year at $3700. With a base number of 30 men and the rise in prices which is bound to come I am afraid that this provision cost may be somewhat low for next year.

I am likewise wondering whether or not your base number of 30 is not too high. However if it is, the difference can be made up by the compensated charges.

On page 3 you show a prevision for 8 monthly board bills at $23. However on page 4 when the various amounts to be charged for board over the 9 months period are consolidated you will find that you have only provided for 7 and one-half months board instead of 8 months. This will cut off approximately $175 in board revenue. Am I not correct?

Fraternally yours,

H. Seger Slifer