Box 330
Ottawa R.R.1
Tuesday.
Dearest Mummy,
I have been packing parcels all evening and feel quite packed up myself! I am quite disgusted because having finished a little nightie for Barbara Heslop & feeling very virtuous & ready to begin packing Nan’s parcel, I find I have nothing for Sandy (can’t think why! Have lost my original list & am all of a do!) and have to wait till I go shopping. I never feel Christmassy at this stage – just rather disgruntled!
Cec is at work this evening so I am sitting writing, but must go to bed soon as it is late & he will scold me if he comes back & catches me! You will be back from Milly’s & will have found my last fat letter & I hope the colour pictures. We are all over our colds now, thank goodness, & had a nice quiet weekend so feel quite chirpy again. I hope you all had a grand weekend at Milly’s & enjoyed your Thanksgiving Day. Did Milly’s newly papered rooms look nice & is she all set to come to St.V. in the new year?
Wed.
Lindy & Charlie are listening to Kindergarten of the Air so I am trying to get on with this! Charlie has at last begun to say his Ls & says Lllllinda & Hello very proudly! He is also pestering me, of course!
We still have our snow, & have had a bit more now & then, but not thick. It has been really cold the last few days (9° above), but today it is much milder – still below freezing, but not much. I hung my sheets out yesterday & it was perishing-itis!
Thank you so much for Marg’s recipe for the fish – I think it sounds lovely, but more expensive than my Jambalaya! You should know the latter, by the way, it is West Indian! It has rice & tomatoes etc. in as well as the shrimp. Margs is so public-spirited with her luncheons & getting up dinners etc. I presume that you had the dinner for the Helpers at the Church Hall. I’m glad that you had fun on your Christmas shopping expedition- Marg’s teapot & Monie’s slacks sound very nice & I hope that you’re not quite flat broke! I hope you’re lucky over the luggage too & they give you a Christmas present of the excess!
My plants are all doing fine at the moment – the ivy isn’t luxuriant, but it’s growing! The chrysanthemum was all right for a while, but looks a bit sick now! About Monie’s geraniums, I heard that the old roots deteriorated & got very straggly & that if you wanted nice plants you should always take slips & keep the young plants.
How nice to get all your cards & parcels off your mind. I must get the cards done now. Hugh’s address is: – Lt.Col. H.G. Brown 042539. Headquarters. 219st. FA. Bu. A.P.O. 751. New York City. N.Y.
Ruth is: – 15 Ferriby Rd.. Hessle. E. Yorks.
By the way we did get Charlie a kaleidoscope – also a grown-up wagon for his birthday! We have all the children’s toys now I think – Lindy still says all she wants is her ironing board!
Last week (or week after) I went with Gudrun & Phyl Douglas to a movie “Daddy Long Legs” with Leslie Caron & Fred Astaire, but it was kind of silly & Fred Astaire looked so old! [Cyn had Jean Webster’s books ‘Daddy Long Legs’ and ‘Dear Enemy’, both epistolary, light romances, the first (1912) about a girl from an orphanage sent to a woman’s college, and the next (1915) her friend ‘modernizing’ the orphanage- not likely to have been easily translated into film in the first place, and the stills with Fred Astaire dancing indicate not very true to the book.]
I also went over one evening to see Nan Ramsey & her newest daughter, Linda. None of her children are very beautiful I don’t think, but this poor little baby has cross eyes & really it was most difficult to find anything nice to say! They are having a party tomorrow night & neither Cec nor I are very enthusiastic about going, but we will probably enjoy it once we get there. We have found a new babysitter – Mrs. Martin down the road (grandmother of those twin babies at the grey house near Grenier’s.) She is English & seems very nice & competent. We went to Margie & Cy’s on Saturday night & Teddy sat for us & the children woke & cried! Pete & Lu were at Margie’s & we had a nice evening & saw lovely colour pictures Cy took in Paris, Belgium, Austria, Germany & London.
The children are getting restless & pestilential so I had better stop, & also get this mailed. I also have a letter to mail to Joan Appleyard – she is coming on Friday for the night & to do Christmas shopping.
I do hope that you have a very easy, pleasant flight & a nice few days in Trinidad. I’m so glad you will get on so soon to St.V. – I am sure once you leave Long Beach it will be much better to get straight back & A. Moo will be looking forward so much to seeing you. We will all be thinking of you on Sun. & maybe next time it will be us setting out. We read of flights from Montreal having started- to Barbados as well as Trinidad I think.
Lindy sends lots & lots of love & a big kiss.
Charlie sends hugs & kisses-
Lots & lots of love from us all –
Cyn & Cec
Lindy
Charlie
A Family History in Letters 