Viewing page 48 of 58

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Rochester, N.Y., Oct. 23, 1934

Dear Sister Edna:

Soon your birthday will be celebrated and I will have another day in which I will miss someone I love. We've gone a long way on the road of life and yeah you always seem young and sunny to me, full of enthusiasm and the desire to create something good or beautiful. What you say about your California home makes me believe that your characteristic spirit has not deserted you. I "sort of" understand you, you see, and appreciate you in your courage. How I admire that. 

So, Endeka, Happy Birthday, and may you be only at the midsummer of a long and happy career in the land where oranges grow and good cheer prevails. Happy birthday!

Each week-end I go to the lodge on the hills and watch how it has evolved from a ugly ruin to a fitting beauty that fits snugly into the forest and the vineyard beyond. Our County is the largest grape producing county outside of one in California and we grow grapes by the ton-- but do not get much for them, but I think we broke even this year. At any rate we put down 60-gallons of juice and I hope it doesn't keep, we have so many friends that like it evolved as the legend of Omar says it should. As for me I'm about as temperate as ever and a couple of ounces of nice catawba a couple of times a month when I'm tired is about enough. Last week I planted bulbs all over the place, lilies, tulips, iris and the like. We have all the spring bulbs in and a lot of peonies and other perennials. We were a burst of bloom this summer and next year our roses, frozen out by a 42-below winter, will bloom again. 

My little Martha-Anne received your gifts and reveled in all of them by putting them all on over her overalls. She wants to be a boy, she says. In many ways she is just like you. But she's and angel too at times -- and at other times cussed and squals and kicks and throws a fit. But she comes out of it all smiles.