Isolated

(Fragment 3)
It was small wonder that my father began walking down the road to Taycheedah to play cards with the men.  He accused her of being solitary and none of the neighbors good enough to invite over.  To tell the truth, that's the way it was.  She was above them in education, had taught school and read every book she could.  She even tried Christian Science, but it never quite came off.

[Editor's Note:  With this fragment, it seems I have finally come to an end, because I cannot find, and may not have preserved, Polly's letters from the 1970's.  My plan now is to re-arrange these extracts in chronological order and then, perhaps, find a way to publish them as a little book.]

Sleeping porch

(Fragent 2)
After about two years [at the sanatorium], when my mother learned how to make a place to sleep outdoors in the cold no matter what the weather, we all went back together again.  Mother had a porch built so that a window of the house opened on the center of the bed.  Early in the evening she would line her bed with hot water bottles and bricks.  She knit herself warm caps and mittens and always made a joke when she went thru the window.  There was a long-haired black hide that went on top, but I never knew the name of it.

Breakup

(Final fragment 1)
[When Minnie went to the TB sanatorium, Polly went to live with her Aunt Olga] and my father gave my brother to his mother at Fond du Lac where her daughter Lois and husband Bill McWhorter lived.

Moral

(Lyndon 24)
So this is the life of one who had no steady influence to guide him and who had not enough ambition within himself to make something of himself.

Funeral

(Lyndon 23)
I think I went to the funeral alone.  Daddy phoned and told me to keep my chin up and he'd be home as fast as he could; he had seen the papers.  I recall there were some from Ripon  ...  [more from Fond du Lac].  The young man, very nice looking in a dark suit  (cannot think of his name:  A--?  G--?  (Gutreiter? perhaps) shook hands with me and spoke very well expressing his sympathy.

The accident

(Lyndon 22)
A storm blew up fast and the boat turned over.  As I remember it, Lyn let the friend have the gasolene can to hang on to as Lyn was a fairly strong swimmer.  But wearing a leather jacket etc. he hardly had a chance.  We all felt so sorry for his dying fighting the water, but I mourned a life wasted.

Circumstances

(Lyndon 21)
My father went on to say that Lyndon and a friend were working at a resort on Lake Winnebago (I think) [Beaver Dam, actually] and they had gone out in a small gasoline launch for fish on a very overcast day.  Perhaps they were asked to do this to serve fish at the resort.