Stamp collectors

(1941 Fall)
[To her Aunt Lois:]  Skip loves his school this year [fifth grade] and loves his teacher [Wanda Roberts].  She disciplines them, yet is kind.  I must take the stamp off your letter for him.  He saves everything for his album or for trading with other boys.  Lorin is so good to him, and they go over their stamps together.  Skip is so like his father in appetite and all.

Merit badge

(1966 July 31)
David Spear came to pass his stamp merit badge, and although Daddy had planned to watch the play "Mary Mary" with me, he spent 2-1/2 hours passing him - helping him do some hard things.

Mr. Apfelbaum

(1966 July 31)
Saturday Daddy sold his foreign stamps to Mr. Apfelbaum for $5000.  We were so glad they came on Saturday while he was still here [and not yet in hospital] and could handle the transaction.  Mr. and Mrs. Apfelbaum have a retail stamp store in Philadelphia employing about 50 people.  They tour months at a time buying up collections.  ...  They arrived about 9 a.m., stayed to lunch, left about 4:30.  We were all exhausted.  It took 8 cartons from movers' size to small, which had to fetched from attic & basement.  ...  Mr. A reminded me of Grandfather Kay, dapper, slightly bald, shrewd, same oxy sense of humor:  Would you like to get in this box?  (Ha Ha).  ...  Lunch was a nightmare.  Everyone on diets, all different.  Mr. A was off fowl, fresh fruits and salad, coffee, cigarettes.  Whew!

Beaumont Ave.

Hear you are thinking of buying a house.  Arguments for and against.  Big consideration is money and depreciation and upkeep.  LL says it's a luxury.  The first one we bought was cute but too small.  When Daddy found he couldn't keep his stamps in your room any longer, I think it was a disappointment.  Our bedroom was also a sad place, as the rain burst in on the closet shelf and wet the albums one spring.  Think hard about your needs and what you can afford for upkeep.

The boiler burst

(1975 April 7, Monday)

[Polly is ready to begin a week at middle school of mini classes on stamp collecting.] HOWEVER
at 8 a.m. my friend who was going to pick me up at 11:30 this morning to go to this school called me to say THE BOILER BURST AND THERE WOULD BE NO SCHOOL ALL DAY!!! Isn't that the berries?! And I worked so hard on this talk!

P.S. 1 -- Dr. Tischer [scheduled to talk on Tuesday] had a coronary Wed., which I just learned of now. So I will speak in his place Tues. If boiler is fixed.

P.S. 2 -- Monday night - no school tomorrow. Boiler not mended yet, so no tlk.

Mini Classes

(1975 April 2)

Did I tell you about the Mini Classes at Middle School? For one week all electives. I set up the one on Stamp Collecting. April 7 - I talk (1 hour) - history of - locals, old valentines. Maybe slides from NYC. Pony Express etc. April 8 - Dr. Tischer - spent 4 days making his own cards with an example of some feature on each. April 9 - Ruth Nauertz - slides & her collection. April 10 - the D.A. Bill Vogel - maybe slides and/or his collections on Okinawa. April 11 - Soter Hobahs - Airs.

Afterlife

(1975 April 23)

I too feel bad about breaking up Daddy's Irish [stamp] Collection - he had spent years on it & had so many rare stamps. However, once we talked about disposition of our things after our deaths and he said he didn't care at all what happened to his stuff after he was gone. I feel the other way and would like my things to go to the proper place or person. And I said so. Then he thought a minute and said, "H--m - no - why should I care about that then?" I did not reply. It is so hard to talk about that subject! But I wondered what he was thinking - about many subjects - and often hesitated asking. But here I took it to mean after he left us, he would then be busy with other things, such as getting his soul nearer to God.

Portant papers

(1965? March 13, Friday)

I hope this day was not unlucky for you, but just a last school day of the week day with family and kittens at the latter end. Miryam wrote about your not minding if yours bothered you when you were reading. Well, I can tell you one time Daddy nearly cleaned house on ours when we lived on the Hill. At that time his study was just off the kitchen and as we had kittens in the kitchen, we likewise had kittens in the study. As you know, he always had piles of papers on the floor and stamps to be soaked off and so on. One night I heard a virulent swearing coming from his room, and when I at last got him calm enough to speak a few English words, I learned the kits had been pooing on his papers. Oh, such a time. When you were three, you used to say "'portant papers." We used to say that a lot, even now.

Martha's 1 & 1/2 cents

(1971 May 4)

I have something so funny to tell you. You aren't the only one who can solve a puzzle - tho my little story is not original, I'm sure, and Daddy would say, "Oh, didn't you know that before?" Yet it came new to me and this is how I discovered it.

You know how much trouble it is coping with these presidents on stamps - so I thot I would salt them away for a while in the vertical file you made and tackle them all at once some time, maybe when you were here. So I made a list of the presidents all in due order, with Washington No. 1, Adams 2, Jefferson 3, etc. - as an index; then numbered and named the file pages "(1) Washington" etc. Then I was ready to stash them away.

This Presidential Issue is always popping up in batches I soak; so I started in on them. All of a sudden, I realized the 1 cent green Washington, 2 cent rose Adams, 3 cent purple Jefferson indicated by their denominations their turns at the Presidency! Not a word about this in Scott, but terribul clevah! How about that!!!

Frugality

(1970? Summer)

I will tell you about closing the Apfelbaum deal [to sell some of Lorin's stamps]. When Mr. Gittes phoned to see if I would accept their price, and I had decided to do so, I replied, Yes, I would, if they would also send me an 11-cent Liberty stamp to finish out my issue. He said, "Mint or Used?" and I said I didn't care. So when the envelope came, I ripped it open, and here was the check. I shook it and the letter and couldn't find the stamp. So I decided a separate department would be sending it later, or else they forgot all about it. Later, when I was putting it all away, I noticed they had used the 11-cent Liberty for mailing the letter! Frugal.

Arab guest

(1966 February 18)

About time now to tell you about my birthday weekend. First of all, an Arab came Friday. He is Hassan Mirabux from Aden, South Arabia, a free port on the Red Sea. He is one of LL's stamp friends and brot him a beautiful cover. He has a good government position and was sent here by his government to take a seminar at UW in coops and has been on arranged tours all over US before coming here. Has a beautiful wife who teaches English, sister who teaches Arabic, small son, and daughter he has never seen. Leaving the 2-month-old baby with her mother, the wife was to join him about now. He was a delightful guest, had been in all countries but Russia, a great talker. Showed me how to wind an Indian turban and put on an eqal and is going to send me one. He came here from a week at LaCrosse and we put him in the double bed.

Card readers

(1961 September 30)

Thank you for your card - now we have it straight. I wouldn't be so frank on a postal card if I were you. I know your writing is tiny, but you would be surprised. A man who works in the Post Office here asked Lorin for a certain stamp on a card when he was thru with it.

Cleaning the study

(1949 October 7)

I am so tired I can hardly hold a pen. Now I am housecleaning Daddy's study and hope all goes well so I can get it back together before he gets home [from California]. I can hardly push the stuff back far enough to get a square yard to varnish. Then I wait a day for that to dry and thus I continue. -- Yaas - now that I have got the three worst offenders out of the house, I am trying to restore the poor thing.

This morning finished varnishing the study except way under the safe. It seemed too terribly heavy to move because I was tired. I know it has casters and really isn't and feel guilty. Mary M unloaded the oak bookcase you made, and I cleaned and put all back, though I fear not in identical spots.

I know just how it will be: Daddy will come home and glance in and see the shiny floor and all in order and his heart will sink. But he will have guessed how hard I worked and so he will kiss me and say how wonderful it looks. Then when the welcome is over, he will sit down and dig in. Then things will start to fly and thump and that will be a good time for me to rake leaves, if daylight, or take a bath, if evening. But then it will be clean - after all, once every 3 years when he goes to his church convention.

Stamp storm

(1951 September 20)

Last night I went in the study after I wrote you to see how things were coming and immediately stamps of 200 countries in alphabetical order leaped into the air and hurled themselves about. Vexed, LL stooped to pick them up. I started for the door but not soon enough - accidently LL hit 2 boxes (in order) he'd worked months on and they fell into the big box, all mixed up. You can imagine the state of your father's feelings! Feeling much like a black cat, I slunk up to bed before anything else happened.

It was the cat

(1994)

Last night I being rather restless and not sleeping well found myself browsing in the past [ca. 1952].

I was in the kitchen after supper doing last minute things while Lorin was in his adjacent study, from which came such swearing and cussing as were rarely heard in our house. He was working on his priceless stamp albums and had put the overflow momentarily on the floor when Copy Cat, our black kitten, paper trained, was streaking for his life out of there and down to the safety of the basement and sand boxes.