Leach, Saidee R.

English

DigitalCommons@Bryant University

  [Transcription begins]        Monday night  August 28, 1944   What do you want for Christmas?     #52     Dear Douglas - Whenever the 28th rolls around--I know the time is one month nearer your coming home for Daryl’s birthday (monthly & annual) falls on the 10th and she was just six months old when you were last home and now she is 17 mos.  She gets into the cupboards every chance she can & today we caught her right in the act so Marilyn stood & looked at her very severely without saying a word.  Daryl looked like a startled fawn for a minute & then started to laugh a most infectious laugh so that Marilyn couldn’t help but join in & then Daryl laughed harder than ever!  She knows where I keep the brown sugar & if I forget to shut that door she is there like a flash looking up in my face & saying “p’ease!” in a most beguiling way.  She is generally outdoors when Dad drives in & runs to meet him calling “Baba.”  We have had your most recent letter #122 dated Aug. 16 & received by us Aug. 22.  Very good time.  I’m so glad that your mail is beginning to come thru again & that the maple sugar finally arrived.  I’ll try it again, next time with a larger amount.  You’re right about our having such fine friends.  We can look back on many a good time together & what good times there are ahead for when you come home there will be all the old things to try again--sailing, frankfort [sic] roasts, group singing, square dancing, good theatre, evenings of just talking or reading by the fireplace.  Even if you’re not seeing real girls, you are still getting quite an eyeful via your Varga1 calendar.  I happened to see a copy when I visited Barbara Longdale’s last Wednesday--so I can [indecipherable] visualize the hat the October beauty is wearing (as if that mattered!)  I had a lovely time going down to the wedding.  Uncle Hartley Harvey, Aunt Marion & I went down on the noon bus & Uncle Harvey said that we women didn’t stop wagging our tongues the whole way!  Aunt Hazel had a buffet supper for us, Dick Whipple was there to be an usher & his girl, Betty Haddleton, came on from New York.  The wedding was at 7 o’clock in one of the lovely churches across on the green (Congregational) and the Baptist minister (formerly from N. Attleboro) performed the ceremony.  Robert’s little girl Charlotte and Beverly’s Linda were the two little yellow clad flower girls (we’re training Daryl to be one at yours!)  Barbara’s five year old David when he heard his sisters were to perform as flower girls said, “I guess I would be a tree, then.”  Hazel Louise & Douglas Bragg will have a few days in the Pacific.  It was lots of fun being down at the Longdale’s for Aunt Hazel is so jolly & bright.  Besides her teaching & book writing she does a daily column for the New Haven Register & the telephone is constantly ringing or people coming in with news items.  Aunt Marion & Uncle Hartley                                                           1  “Varga Girls” were the work of Peruvian painter, Alberto Vargas, who became famous during the 1940s for his creation of  “pin-up” girls often appearing in Esquire Magazine.   left the next day for New York & we showered them with leftover confetti as they stepped on the train!  It is their first vacation for quite a long time & they really looked very bride & groom-y & happy!  Grandma & I came home by train the next day after that.  It is still quite a sight to see the long trains of military freight rushing along.  So glad you have a real swim once in awhile.  Don’t bother to return snapshots--just throw them away as we always order duplicate sets.  (Have just re-read your letter & evidently I am mistaken about your receiving the maple sugar.  Let me know if you ever do get it, until I hear I’ll not try to send that for it may have all melted!)  Marilyn is out in the kitchen typing envelopes & cards for the Church of the Transfiguration every member canvas.  The last few days we have had the kind of weather you like, crisp & cool in the morning with a very blue sky full of puffy white clouds, then the day warm & balmy but snappy enough to sleep well at night.  Next week we expect to spend at Coles so that the men who are papering our downstairs rooms may work unhindered.  This week Thursday, Dad & I have been invited for the day on Douglas Young’s cruiser, “LeaHorse.”  Because of the gas restriction we will not go too far but Dad seems to think we will have a lobster dinner at the Lobster Pot in Bristol.  I have not heard from the Buffums since I went to New Haven & as they do not answer the phone & the bank tells me Mrs. Buffum is not in each day I have called, I think possibly they have gone to Waukeela for a few days.  I’ll be writing again soon, I have bought a V-mail pad so will try to get in an extra once in a while but do not think for one minute that I intend to let them take the place of my weekly talk with you.  They will simply be extras.  All our love & prayers    Mother  [Transcription ended]    

Letter Written by Saidee R. Leach to her Son, Navy Ensign Douglas Leach, Dated August 28, 1944

https://digitalcommons.bryant.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1117&amp;context=wwll_leach

Letter Written by Saidee R. Leach to her Son, Navy Ensign Douglas Leach, Dated August 28, 1944

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