1936 (orig. published June 7, 2006)

(republished)....

There are so many things in the letters from 1936 I would like to share, by way of newspaper clippings sent to Jean about topics ranging from world events to fashion, to her mothers own take on these very things.....the delightful & endearing things her father writes to her & more. I need to be at home to access a camera & my picture files to do that, but here at work I am done with the '36 letters and at least wanted to keep up to date here!
Seems at some point previous to the correspondence I have, Jean was in an accident that affected her spine to the point she was in bed often with pain so bad it made her nauseous. Her father did quite a bit of research into what could be done for her, from how much it would cost to be examined in Rochesterat Mayo Clinic ($60 to $150), to what she would need to do when they interviewed her & Bob about their finances to determine what they would charge, or, as he put it "to see how many clothes pins you have in your basket & what kind of vacuum cleaner you use". !!.
In October of 1936 she went to Mayo and had surgery. She left a couple weeks later & spend the next 2 1/2 months in a rehab center with her mother there all along. The letters she wrote to Bob are the first I have read with HER voice, and they reveal a scared & vulnerable 30 year old woman trying to recover from a serious surgery and struggling to make her husband happy from afar & please her mother who was intent on mothering her as long as she could. Bob was left at home alone to get a Christmas tree, do the Christmas cards & shopping & find a nursemaid to help with her care so she could come home.
She did get home in January, and I will be back to share more about the '36 letters with some visuals & quotes! Ang