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THE YEAR 1942
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NOTE: This section will complete the fill-in of the period from November 28, 1940 to July 17, 1942 when I kept no diary. For more complete comments on this, refer to p.1 of the 1941 section immediately preceding this. FHC 7/21/76.
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I have little record of our family life during the first half of 1942. I shall refer to a few broad subjects but have little detail. Soon after Pearl Harbor Mother came to visit us from Syracuse and remained for many months. Her health declined steadily throughout the spring and in early July we put her in the Snyder-Thrasher Private Hospital upon Dr. Hart's recommendation, to have a complete rest and opportunity to make a comeback. Although I doubted she'd ever feel much like herself again, she still had five years to go and for the most part, she was fairly well during that period. Willie was in reasonably good shape but she'd been dragged down to some extent by the long vigil with Mother while I spent some three months in Washington during the spring. Except for my intermittent urethritis, my health was excellent. The children were strong and healthy during this period, untroubled by our troubles. They made a handsome pair, of whom we were very proud. The war hadn't affected our social life much and we still had fun with our friends much as described in the 1941 story. We did spend my two-week vacation in Erie in 1942 to conserve our tires as well as our money. However, we were feeling sufficiently affluent in 1942 to hire a part time maid to ease Willie's burdens. She was a colored girl named Delores. She was tall, dark and extremely good and she was of great help to Willie at a time when she really needed it. However, Delores finally left us to take a better-paying job in industry. That was bad enogh but what was to come was far worse. Not long after she'd left us, we got word that she'd suddenly come down with tuberculosis and was already dead! It was some sort of a "galluping" type of the disease which had taken her off before much could be done to save her. All of us had been exposed to it but particularly Bab and Rog and they probably were also the most suseptible. We rushed them down to the doctor and had them under close surveillance until all danger was over, but we had an anxious time of it for a while. Neither of them developed any sign of infection. It was in this same general period that Mother became acquainted with Mrs. Downie, Sr., who was John Downie's mother and visited them periodically. They lived in a Baldwin house over on Beverly Drive and Mother and Mrs. Downie got together occasionally. The photo at the top of the page was taken in the Downie back yard and I believe is the last picture that we have of mother.