Quiet time

(1954 August 12)

Perhaps you can be slightly useful and do a little on the moving. You might get some of your own stuff over there, for instance. I am not planning a thing for you to do. Only scat so I can take my nap. It is nice at the park - maybe bring swim suits?

My watch

(1954 July 5)

Did the thunder storms bother you? I was awake a couple of nights. Hard to get back to sleep with light flashing in my eyes and thunder booming in my ears. LL slumbered through all, serene in the knowledge that I would cope with MM's fears, open windows, high wind, threatened flood. He's been very drawn and weary lately, but OK.

Transitory Archbishop

(1954 August 8, Sunday)

Father Gutman with the Archbishop of Scotland dropped in the office to say hello on way to this Anglican Congress. Will stop with us on the way home, whenever. What if August 21? [moving day]. Oh well - we have 2 houses now.

Fierce flies

(1954 August 8, Sunday)

About the proposed picnic - I hate to disillusion you, but the flies have been fierce this year. Perhaps two weeks ago trucks went through spraying a fog mist [DDT?] all over to kill them and mosquitoes. MM and I tried to eat in the yard when LL was in Viroqua and gave it up because of flies. Considering pokio threat perhaps wise.

Second thoughts

(1954 August 8, Sunday)

There are so many major decisions to be made [about remodeling the Grove St. house] - sometimes one a day. I wake up at night wondering if I have decided for the best, if it's only a trifle. (You know me.) This keeps up and so does the tension. But if I decide wrong, I'll be sorry forevermore. I wish I were a different person! I wish I were a cow without any nerves! I wish I could just do anything that came into my head and never know the difference! Anyway, I am very very happy about the house and in a month or so shall very likely be in, though far from settled - never never settled down tight though - or so?

Home sweet home

(1993 January 31)

I am very tired of this [Schmidt Home] and want to go home. So would you be. There is a high-pitched bell ringing on and on. Someone is calling for help. This my roommate. - I just wish I could go home. Jan says she thinks I may not be allowed to live alone. She may be partially responsible for this. Bill says, "I'll ask Skip." I tell him you are not paying for this and want to go home. I recall Ruth Nee [R.N., a friend] saying many people long for their homes. O dear.

If I am not in the rotunda watching TV, my roommate Helen comes after me to watch TV there.

Inez

(1993?)

I am very restless so may as well talk about this place [the Schmidt Home]. Inez is very sick and may not live. She grew up on a lonely farm near Lone Rock and had to feed the pigs before walking 3 miles to school. She worked 30 years for the telephone company. Yesterday she was taken from the table to her room in a wheelchair. "Coffee killed the women," she would quote, "but it was whisky that killed the men." She was about 5 feet and worn-lookings. I don't think she had many things given to her.

Kneejerkers

(1954 August 1)

Saturday MM resumed her music lessons and today Marsha went to church with us. She and MM kept going up and down on the kneelers and in so doing jerking the pew ahead which we were leaning on. Thought we'd land on our faces a few times. LL got wild and cross when jolted in the middle of a solemn moment. Then the time was just the same as at her church but it seemed longer (11-12).

Don't know it all

(1954 July 12)

We are glad to hear you are working hard [nights] on your thesis, the work behind the [day] job. I am cheering for you. I, too, would be fed up on what happened in 1225. And I think that the sooner you start teaching to see if you can teach and if you like it and are liked, the better for you, and learn more later on if you find (just killed a silverfish) you can't get along on what you already know.

Exploring the attic

(1954 Fall)

Yes, the [new] house [33 S. Grove St.] is wonderful, isn't it? You know, Skip, it has always been a dream of Daddy's (or objective) to have a nice home - to get one I would be happy with. You know some of our struggles along the way, not all. Then so many things in between - family troubles, my sickness with big bills, yours, Daddy's, your education. But now quick in a rush before Maggie has college bills we're going to have the house. And it will be beautiful! By the way, this is a silly whim - but don't let on to the relatives. They know we are "doing a little fixing" but not what.

The stairs to the attic is done now and we find generations of hornets in the rafters. It is enough to discourage a less doughty person than I, but having won out over flying squirrels and cockroaches, rats, mice, and almost over crickets, I am not too set aback. The attic floor waves up and down because the hand-hewn joists are uneven.

The director

(1954 June 28)

I am glad MM <9> is off to swimming lessons. There is too little direction in her life vacations and that is true of all children hereabouts; so they quarrel and bicker until I loathe the sound of it. So I am glad she has the class and I hope she learns to swim.

A sticky situation

(1954 June 28)

We worked at the lawn party 6-8 last night. LL dipped ice cream and I dipped berries. He would not sit down on the chair provided and therefore utterly exhausted himself so he had to sit in the car and wait for us. After much prying at home I got the admission that the chair seat was sticky with ice cream. I am still mad at him because had he but mentioned it, a newspaper was handy. But you know your father.

Hosanna

(1954 April 10, Palm Sunday)

We have a new little 4-year-old, Buddy, in Sunday School. Father B gave out the palms early in the service and he had quite a time with his. Is a very active child and he and Butch sat alone in front pew unless I came and sat with them. This I did in the interest of welfare for all, when Buddy performing with his palm hit me a thwack in the face with it! An experience.

all around the mulberry bush

(1954 May 23)

Before Grandfather [Alfred Kay] left, MM went up to pull some rhubarb for him and found a nest in the pine tree - three robins, quite large and staring at us solumnly. Mother came with a worm when we were hiding under the mulberry bush watching her, but she wouldn't go to the nest until well satisfied we had stopped watching and were on our way home. Very interesting.

Almost an Ozark hour

(1954 May 23)

I have been busy writing the script for the Music Club Hour on Saturday - you know how long it takes me ! This week it was Elie Siegmeister's Ozark Set and J. J. Niles (our records). It was quite thrilling to listen to, and agonizing too because in spite of all my timing it ran short and the studio stuck another record in.

Sickness in the home

(1954 May 2)

Tuesday PTA - my last program - MM is in a folk dance. Besides dancers there are a ballad enacted, puppet show and a movie entitled "Fitness in the Home," which I understood to be "Sickness in the Home" and therefore is in paper thus. Everyone is all agog, esp. MM - all boys and girls wear white shirts - girls full dark skirts. Election officers - not IT!

Mincemeat

(1954 March)

Saturday was church bake sale. I had nothing so sent LL to buy something and give them some money. As usual, he had to overdo it and got brown bread, rolls and a hot mince pie which he poured all over himself and arrived home furious. I cleaned it it off perfectly and had the pie for lunch. My piece was merely two pieces of pastry. Not a raisin in it!

Facing the music

(1954 April 21)

Music Club District Meeting here today. Baraboo, Reedsburg and RC. Supposed to meet at 2. Lorin took me at 3 and it hadn't started yet! He said his bus left every hour on the hour (patience thin). Got there at 3 at Methodist Church and it hadn't started yet. I had typed 58 lapel name cards and Ann Rose was registering the crowd of 50 persons and I kicked in and sat down. Lengthy business meeting and long windy talk by our state president, out of which I walked at 4:30. ...

Back to M.E. church about 7:45. Church jammed. LL had trouble parking close enough to curb. MM immediately thirsty, hot, tired, and had to find bathroom - I said no. On my left and near door LL was sulking because people jammed into him. Then he kept track of each piece and wrote what the time required was for each piece on program plus encores. It was a lovely relaxing time, and I stayed until after Helen Starr sang and then left as did she and parents. So hot - 85 or so.

Thanks for the food

(1954 March)

I had a shock when I brought my plate to [rosemaling] class. Mrs. V. complimented me on how I have improved in my shading. Then when she put on the board some Norwegian sayings for plates, I discovered that TAK VOR MATEN is three words. Mrs. Soffel thought it might come off with turpentine and so it did, and just now I have it back on properly. It is done except for a few more flowers I may think up for the border.

Food fussing

(1954 January)

We bought a capon yesterday, $4, and bacon is 89 cents a pound. I like the farmers but I wish prices would come down some. We are still eating beans from the Xmas bazaar I froze.

The python

(1954 September 24)

Thank you for doing your own laundry. Can you help me out by doing mine for a while? This is what happened: I put 3 sheets and 1 pair of cases in the wash yesterday. All went well until final drying, when there was a frightening rattling down there. Afraid to approach by the inside door, I ran around outside and behold the monster had broken its moorings and was waltzing around the room. Conquering a desire to flee (as from the python), I summoned up courage and turned it off. Forest hasn't fixed it yet. All the wash had wrapped itself up heavy. This whacking about set it off balance and it has to be put back on the track. Always something unforeseen.

Sitting

(1954 September 24)

Try not to sit too long at a time. Break it up with a few setting up exercieses or dash around the block. In the long run you will find you can do more and keep at it longer and won't have such backaches. The backaches are why I never kept at typing, I guess.

Master of arts

(1954 September 24)

I must tell you we got just a batty letter from Auntie Mabel the other day. One of us must have written her that you got your Master of Arts. "O," says she, "O, I didn't know Skippy had taken up art ... how splendid! What a fine future he will have ahead of him in the field of art!" etc. etc.

(1954 September 24, Friday)

We are so happy for you about your job! [in UW Archives]. Maggie said, getting wind of the mail at the lunch table, "What is Skip doing?" Daddy: "His new job is sorting waste paper in the basement of the library." MM: "Is he really sorting waste paper in the basement?" Then of course I could stand it no longer and told her you were cataloging important documents." That held her.

Lonesome

(1953 December)

Yes, I suppose you miss your old crowd. I always did. I had two bad jolts - one when my schooling was over and I left my kind and went off to teach in a lonely little town [Bear Creek WI], and again when I was first married and September came and teachers and scholars were going back and I wasn't; I was plenty lonesome. But after you came into my life I had plenty to think about.

Duplicity

(1953 December)

Maggie <8> was disgusted with the duplicity of the world the other day. She opened a new tube of toothpaste, expecting it to be cholorophyll, and it came out in a lather. Says she, "There, right there on the box, it says Walgreen and it's white.

That was easy to figure, but what she ate at school which she glowingly described as Nazarenes I still wonder at -- "We ate some Nazarenes today at school, and were they yummy!" Like little oranges? Three grew together.

(1953 December 13)

I traced down the Nazarenes. They were really kum-quats but at first were thought to be and called "Necatrines." Thought your mind might rest easier if you knew. Mine did.

Mercury

(1953 December)

I dropped our thermometer and broke it and I think it was worth the fun we had with the mercury. Daddy got to telling how he would bring some to school in a hanky and press it and it would go right through the cloth.