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get on with each other rather than "barbarians". We live easier with people who have the same traditional training and inheritance. You were with Ina last year, with all her foreign training. I was uneasy the whole year, and it is relief that you are with Jean who wouldn't go off on any such trips. The same holds as true with girls as with men in our associations. Much as we are attracted by the exotic, when it comes to living with them, it is a different matter. There are too many adjustments to be made say between yourself and a Solomon Islander in living together. The living with a Catholic as Helen's girl seems doomed to is pretty tough,- to bring up your children in a priest-ridden religion full of such idiocities as that is, think of it.  Or a Jewish family ... to brand your children with that stigma .... you or I may not consider it a stigma, but most of the world has for generations.  Or to marry a Chinese and have half oriental children. Julia told me how the son of a friend of hers who did, committed suicide. The strain of being neither one nor the other was too much for him.  You can be tolerant enough yourself, but it is the rest of the world and the way it looks at such things that is enough to wear down the finest.  So don't get into any such situation that is difficult. Be friendly and get stimulation and enjoyment from all kinds, but in your basic living conditions, choose carefully from your own little pond.  It is wisest.  You can't say I haven't had 30 years' experience in living amidst southerners.  My ideal has always been of Harvard - rather than Geo Wash or the Univ of Virginia - or even Yale!  You get a stamp up there which is recognizable.  It is for clear thinking, tolerance and fine attention to details.  I hope you will bear this as clearly as your Dad is marked by it.

Now I must go do the washing.

Love, Mother