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13

Willie was having a good pregnancy and Dr. McCallum could scarcely believe her gain in weight. She felt great and was rapidly approaching 140 when she got back. I'd never seen her look so well and we hoped she'd be able to retain some of her added weight because, as her photos show, she'd been too think. And Bab was fine too, the dearest, cutest, prettiest little girls imaginable. And what a joy it was to me to play with her before dinner. I had difficulty believing she was mine because she was so lovely. She appeared glad to be home and, to my happiness, to be with her "Gaga" again. was indeed a proud papa. Both Willie and I were nearly wild one day in early April when Bab fell off her tricycle, gashing her cheek and lip pretty badly but it proved to be nothing serious. We were so wrapped up in her that to have anything threaten her in any way was almost more than we could bear. Soon after Willie and Bab returned, we had Perk out to dinner and Bab was at her most adorable; Perk just sat there and gazed at her all the way through the meal, wholly unable to pay much attention to anyone else.

My health wasn't perfect during the early part of the year although actually there wasn't anything seriously the matter. I had a minor stomach upset in January that finally required castor oil to clear up and kept me out of the office for a half day, and it was rare that I missed time from work. Then I had a plugged-up ear which I had blown out at the Works hospital and which I've had on and off ever since. I developed a case of mild hemorrhoids which I finally shook. But the thing which disturbed me the most was an attack of urethritis which I very foolishly self-diagnosed as a strain of some sort and didn't take to the doctor for some time--and when I did, he took it very lightly and I was enormously relieved. But I had this recur occasionally for years and was never able to get a doctor to take it seriously, usually getting the advice to "drink a lot of water and forget it" or something of the sort. On one occasion, I pressed Dr. Gage so hard on the matter that he at last told me, obviously with reluctance, to come back the next day and he would have "an instrument" with which to analyze the problem--and fortunately for me, I suspect, I was suddenly okay the next day so didn't go in and presumably missed my first cystoscopic exam although, at the time, I didn't know what he was going to do and had never heard of a cystoscope. I was to wait another thirty years or so to finally be introduced to this delightful experience.

We had many friends and pursued a reasonably active but inexpensive social life despite the Depression. We still did things with Adeline Macloskie occasionally and through her met Mary Lo and Bud Traphagen although it was a number of years before we got at all chummy with them. We liked the Henshaws but Betty's oncoming serious eye trouble, which was eventually to virtually blind her, caused them gradually to withdraw largely from all but their most intimate friends, and even some of them.