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Erie, Pa.,
Wednesday, Nov. 15, '38.
Spent a good part of the day working on the Penna. Richard rail grinding locomotive proposition, getting off a 5 page letter to Kittredge. I have had to overcome various obstacles on this and by hard work, I've so far kept the diesel well in the picture. And while I appreciate the job may amount to nothing, it is a good workout for me when I take it seriously. And that is the way to take any job regardless of whether it seems important. Give it all you have. It may turn into something and is far more likely to if you do a good job on it. And even if it turns into nothing, it has served to exercise your mind and resources.

Willie went to the Civic Music Assn. tonight ("La Argentinita") with Mildred MacDonald and Mother and I really had a very pleasant evening together - the kind I enjoy with her. I got her talking about her youth and my grandfather and the days they sailed the seas in the "Charles Marshall". He was master of passenger ships once, carrying as many as 800 passengers but by the time Mother was going with him the steamboats had taken over the passenger trade and he was handling freight. And evidently he lived high, had plenty of money and spent plenty so that when the "Charles Marshall", of which he owned a share pulled her anchor into a heavy storm in the English Channel, ran into a reef and was badly damaged, and was finally sold for a song, he had little left. After that he was in the Dept. of Docks of New York City (when Mother lived in Brooklyn), and during the last years of his life, had a summer job with the Erie Canal at Syracuse. He died at 77. He was one of the men who couldn't believe steam would ever displace sailing ships completely, and he stuck with the sailing vessels until he lost all he had. I gather that he was

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