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707 West Springfield 
Urbana, Illinois
July 9, 1958

Dear folks, 

You asked about the party. It was a fairly hot evening, but a little fan Angelo Rossi left Jack helped some. We were not able to use the bathroom set-up for cooling the air because Henry Bobotek had a badly inflamed neck (an allergy) and had to sit right by the fan. We had to sit right by the fan. We had him and his wife Beatrice, Joan Cederstrand (her husband sick), and the De Wits. I made an apple-filled cake and put candles on it. Most people I didn't tell of my birthday but the De Wits brought a small camera book and Jack gave me a record. It was a nice party and must have disturbed the neighbors down stairs, but their children have disturbed us so much that I didn't mind. 

We began looking at apartments last night, looking carefully over the apartment Rossi used to live in, in which our new furniture is now stored and being lived on by friend Ralph Lewis. It is in a nice new building in a shady spot near the boneyard (open sewer running through campus, but it doesn't smell much from a distance) off the street and quiet, has enough room but is a little on the cramped side. No cockroaches as in our present place (Jack kills about 5 a night), presumably quiet neighbors (all students, since a University building), and good arrangement of what space there is (kitchen-living room, bedroom, bath). It wouldn't need painting. But we want to be sure there aren't bigger places as nice, so from now on we will be consulting the ads. 

Mr. Wetmore, head of the department, is not in much and just phoned that he won't be in today until late. His wife is fairly sick and they have four boys. He has borrowed a dictating machine so he can get caught up on his mail at home, but is still far behind. I have almost finished on the yearly inventory, which I carried out at great length the summer before I left. It is an awful job, and the inventory section says our department is the worst one to carry it out. I spent at least a month crawling about the floor finding out what the numbers were on old things that time, and since I fixed it all up numerous errors and other problems have arisen, I'm afraid, but it can never be