Grandma's 1916 letters, part 2

I’ll continue with the 1916 letters this week, picking up with the July 20 letter. She’s less and less inclined to hide her devotion to Grandpa. And not the least bit shy about letting him know he should stay away from other women.

“The next time a nice young lady comes to Renner’s, you’d better come straight home, or I’ll be minus a man. Still, if you looked as badly as you said you did, she probably didn’t lose either head or heart. I think you’d be safer at home, though, if any more red-haired girls happen up that way. I know your failing for red hair. Ha! Ha!”

Then she teases him with this anecdote, about trying to get a young man to take her along to somewhere lots of other people are going:

“I smiled hard as I could at Amandus, thinking he might take me, but it didn’t affect him at all. I can’t imagine why, either.”

By July 30, she’s quite lonely and not a bit shy about telling him:

“Every where I go I miss you, so I hate to go anywhere. I’ll be mighty glad when you’re home again. I feel as though I never, never could let you go again, dear. I’m too lonesome without you. It’s not quite so bad during the weekwhen I have to keep so busy but Sundays are fierce.”

Later on, she talks about reading an article in the Era, a church publication, titled the “Measure and Destiny of Woman.”

“It is a dandy piece; telling all that a woman should be in her home. If I could just be as I ought to be, dear, I could make a happy home for you, but I’m afraid I’m lacking in lots of ways. And if I shouldn’t make you happy, sweetheart, I believe it would kill me. I wouldn’t want to live, at least, if you weren’t happy with me.”

Well, that’s about as explicit an expression of love – maybe even scary, don’t you think? – as we’ve seen in any of these letters.

Then, the very next day, she talks of a letter she got back from Grandpa:

“I’m glad, dear, that I am so dear to you. I don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t. I never doubt your love for me, even if you do think sometimes that I do. And you’re dearer to me, Dave, than anyone else could ever be.”

Sweet, isn’t it? And then we segue into this:

“The negroes gave a show tonight. I didn’t want to go very badly, but Jack wanted me to go with him, so I did. The show was pretty good.”

It must have been a traveling band of performers, I’m guessing. Probably not too many people of color in those parts of Wyoming then.

Then, after no mention of race that I can recall in her earlier letters, other than the one just previous, she writes in the Aug. 2 letter:

“I’ve been picking gooseberries and making jelly today. Any time you run out of work, come down and I’ll give you a job. You ought to see my hands. They look like they might belong to a negress.”

I realize she’s just referring to the darkened color of her hands after working with the berries, but still it’s a little jarring.

Finally, in her Aug. 6 letter, we get confirmation that she kept Grandpa’s letters – at least some of them.

“I’ve just been up reading your letters. I keep the ones I’ve got since you’ve been up to Fenton in my handkerchief case in one corner of my dresser drawer. Then when I get real lonesome, I go upstairs and read them and then I want you more than ever. Since Carol left, I’ve been sleeping alone upstairs and usually the last thing I do before I pile into bed is to go through your letters.”

(Fenton, Wyo., is about as far west of Burlington as Otto is east.)

She closes the letter with this:

“I wish I could talk to you instead of writing. If you were here tonight, I’d sit on your knee until you were good and tired. That wouldn’t be all I’d do, either, would it?”

Well, that’s all I have time for this week. I’ll continue with more letters from 1916 next week.