Mabel: June 28, 1941

"I just gave some kind of bug a nice ride on the carriage of the typewriter. It seemed to enjoy it."

From: Mabel Dixon, Box 76, Blackey, Ky.
To: Mr. Earl Boggs, Route 2, Sellersburg, Indiana c/o Dora Lowler

Saturday Night, 8:30 P.M.
June 28, 1941.

Dearest Earl,

Don’t be surprised because I’m typing this letter—I just wanted to see if I really could. Etiquette says friendly letters should always be written with pen and ink, but I like a change once in a while.

I think I’m going to start writing letters in the form of a diary. That is, write a little bit every day, then send it when I get ready. (I reckon I’ve stopped writing in my diary. Things started happening so fast that I couldn’t record them all.) Every day I think of something I’d like to tell you, but when I get ready to write you, I can’t think of all I was going to tell you. So I think I’ll write a “diary letter” some of these days.

Gee, I just hope you got my letters today! I gave them to Dad to mail yesterday morning. Sometimes he forgets to mail our letters—especially if they have no stamps on them. I had stamps on mine though. I got an awfully sweet letter from you yesterday!

It’s been so hot here. There wasn’t a cool place around, I don’t believe. Yesterday I ironed down in the store and I thought I was going to melt. The building has tin all over it and it felt just like I imagine an oven would feel. I’ve been sewing today and sitting all humped up wasn’t so cool. It has been lightning some tonight. I hope it rains. There must be some bad weather somewhere because there was so much static on the radio we couldn’t hear anything but STATIC.

This week ended the night shift for you for a while, didn’t it? I bet you are glad. I’m glad for you. Maybe you won’t be so lonesome now. I’m doing my best to keep you from being so lonesome, but it must not be doing any good. I’m so busy thinking all the time. I bet I do the craziest things by not noticing what I am doing.

Wonder if Joe went to see Jessie tonight? Or did he come back to work? I’ve planned to write Jessie since I’ve been home, but I just haven’t. She owes me a letter anyway.

I’m undecided as whether to go to camp this year. Miss Miller, one of the workers in the lower end of the county, wants Bernice and me to go. Bernice says she isn’t going. Sometimes I want to go, then again I’m completely out of notion. I’d like to go if Jessie would go, too. I don’t know whether she is planning to go or not. Grethel is leaving Monday. She gets to stay a week. She’s going to miss our Fourth of July Picnic.

Daddy is planning to go to church at Roxanna tomorrow. I don’t know who is having it. We are going on a picnic tomorrow—if it doesn’t rain. We are taking our things and cook after we get there. There is a real high rock or cliff back on top of the hill and we will go there I guess. We always have the best time. I wish you were here so you could go with us. I bet you would have a good time too.

I’d like to see you sitting in an office. I bet you’d look right at home. Who knows but what someday you will be occupying an office like that? But you can’t own an office without trying!

Boy, you ought to see our little house now. (I’d rather you wouldn’t, though, until we get it looking a little more presentable!) We have been painting the kitchen this week and you know what a mess things can get in when painting is going on. We can’t even build a fire in the stove. Dad put up the electric stove out in the porch and we’ve made a kitchen out of the porch. It’s good and cool, too.

You’re worse than Dad is about forgetting to eat. Dad will go to Whitesburg and stay all day. When he comes home at night, he’s so hungry. When we ask why—Well, he forgot to eat dinner! I don’t think there is much danger of me forgetting to eat.

I just gave some kind of bug a nice ride on the carriage of the typewriter. It seemed to enjoy it.

Thursday, two of our cousins came to the store and stayed here with us a while. We all went down to the river to play in the boat and to wade around. Grethel was poling the boat and I was in one end of it. Mary started to sit down with me and the boat dipped with both of us. I got wet but she didn’t. Rex likes to play in the water. He’d get wet, then jump in the boat and shake water all over us. We went wading way down the river. I was hunting some mussel shells to show to the girls. I found one crawling. Then I found three more that were just living in the river in the sand. They were placed so funny—not funny, “ha, ha.” I want to show you some when you come home. That is if you are interested.

Specs I’d better stop writing tonight. This typewriter may be keeping the folks awake. I’ll write some more tomorrow. I’ve made a lot of mistakes already. I’ll correct them so the paper won’t look so bad.

Goodnight, honey chile. Here is what I hope is a good night kiss.

Sunday Afternoon,
In the “Attic”.

Hello, is anyone home today? If so, may I come in for a while? I won’t stay very long—I don’t think.

Well, we didn’t go on our picnic today. It rained; we’ve had company; one of our neighbor women is sick—so among it all, we didn’t go.

Dad went to Roxanna today to the Hogg Memorial. He said he saw Jessie but didn’t talk to her.

Opal came down today and brought Clara Fay. They went home about half an hour ago. Opal and Curtis are planning to move down here. Opal is coming down this week to clean the house up—the little apartment above the store. She’s tickled to death about it. I don’t blame her because I’d want to live in a house by myself, too.

Uncle James, Mama’s brother, came over this evening and got Bernice to come and stay with him for about a week. He wants her to take care of the post office and store. She is going over tomorrow. Grethel is going to camp tomorrow, so they’ll just be Pa, Ma and me here next week. This evening Mama and Bernice have gone to visit Alice Dixon who is sick. She has the flux and is real bad. They say the camp folks all have typhoid fever and flux. The river is so filthy now that I’m afraid to go down and swim or play in it.

It is so hot now. It rained a little before dinner, but things didn’t cool off very much. It didn’t rain very long here. R.B. Caudill once said that this community must be awfully mean. He said big rains would pass all around here and it would never sprinkle at all.

Today we had Clara Fay on a quilt on the floor. I laid down beside her. She fell over on my face and her head hit my mouth (couldn’t miss). It cut my lip and made a little red place on her head. Last Sunday I bit my lip four times in the same place. I was chewing gum, so I got mad and threw it away.

I had to take time out to fan myself. I declare I’m about to melt.

You and your troubles! How are you and the car getting along now? Seems as if by the time you pay to get it all fixed up it is going to cost something. You know, I was telling you about those boys tearing up that car the other day. I noticed this morning that Steve had a brand new car. He told Dad that he turned in the old one as stolen and wrecked. He said his brother and brother-in-law could get out of it the best they could. This evening I saw his brother-in-law in the back seat.

Earl, I’m glad I can help you in some ways. I’d be more than willing to help you more if I knew what to do and when you needed help. I didn’t know that I was that kind of a doctor, though. The other day you said you were the doctor. Maybe a doctor can’t doctor himself, though.

I don’t know what Ray’s address is yet. I’m writing Aunt Pat tonight and finding out. He was working in a grocery store in Louisville. I don’t know whether he got a job or not.

Um-m-m, that soft breeze sure feels good. I’m hoping it will rain some more.

It’s about three more weeks until school begins and I still feel tired. I haven’t heard anymore about the placement of teachers. I think I’ll go hide someplace so they can’t find me. If I got a September school I doubt if I would be rested up. That’s the way I feel right now. Maybe by the time school begins I’ll feel better.

Tuesday Night,
July 1, 1941.

Dearest Earl,

I said I would write a diary letter sometime but I didn’t plan this one to be that way. It just happened. I’m going to finish it right now, too.

You’re working on your new shift now, aren’t you? Do you like it better than the night shift? What hours are you working now? I think I have night and day shifts. I’ve been working all week and I’ve been really been busy. Last Monday I took everything out of the kitchen. Yesterday I had the nice little job of putting it all back. It wasn’t half as easy as taking things out. I have been working all day today, too, and I’m tired.

Gee, hasn’t it been hot though? I bet it was at least ninety in the shade today before it rained. I have been going barefooted (again!) and the ground and rocks were so hot that they almost blistered my feet. Mama got her arms sunburned. today.

It rained this afternoon—4 o’clock to be exact—and everything looked so fresh and cool. The rain came in a different direction today. It usually comes from the southwest, but it came in a northeast direction today. I don’t care how it comes, just so it gets here.

Rex has been sick this week. I think he has distemper. I didn’t know what to do for it until one of the neighbor women told what she always did for it. She said put some sulfur in the food and it was a sure cure. I hope so. I’m trying it.

The mail boy started carrying the mail again today and I am glad. I am always anxious to see what is in the mail.

Is Hattie there with Crit? I think Dad said Mr. Stewart said she was there. I bet Crit is tickled. Don’t blame him though.

Sweetheart, it’s 9:00 and time all good little girls were in bed, so I guess that includes me, too. I’m still thinking more than ever, and I’m hoping time will fly so you can hurry and come home. You can’t guess what I see when I look out the window this week! The moon. It looks a little like the “Southern Moon,” too!

Goodnight, sweet dreams, and here are some goodnight kisses.

Love,
Mabel.