October 6, 1968 The Green Tomato Pickles, The Depot, The Job, The Quilts and The Nice Letter

Dear Mother & Daddy,

"We've had frost the last two nights so I guess summer is really gone. There were frost warnings so I picked all the green tomatoes and gave half to the girl next door. I tried to make green tomato pickles but they are too mushy--just overcooked but I followed the recipe. The picalilli (or however it is spelled) is real good. It took all day yesterday to do the one bucket of tomatoes because I had company come in and then Ann called for some books & slides on Greece.

Polly was going to spend the weekend with her so she wanted Polly to bring them for a history report. It took all afternoon to pick out the slides.

Polly's folks took her to Fulton after school yesterday and I don't know when they plan to come back. They have some relatives near St. Louis so they may go visit them. The bus schedule is so poor that Polly would have been sitting in the St. Louis depot half the night & her mother didn't want that. Polly will stay in the dorm where Ann lives and use someone else's bed. The girls can have guests when someone goes home so a bed is available.

Ann has taken a job in Jefferson City on Sunday mornings. She is going to direct the Junior Choir (up to 7th grade) at the United Presbyterian Church. There are about 40 children. She has been playing for the chorus at Wm. Woods & the director asked her if she was interested in this job. She asked us about it and wanted to do it so badly that we told her she could try it. He took her to Jefferson City for an interview and they hired her. A boy from Missouri Univ. also had been interviewed for the job. The children will rehearse an hour & then sing at church. She will get $15.00 a week but will have to drive because there is no other way to get there.

B is checking over the Mustang and getting it ready for us to take to her next Saturday. It is a big responsibility for her to take on but she'll have to try it and she'll probably enjoy every minute of it and do a good job.

Beulah must have had a pretty nice birthday. I wrote to her but didn't get her package mailed until today. Was Charlotte's quilt the one you made for her--cross-stitched? I don't think $15.00 is bad at all but I'm going to try my hand at it one of these days. I'm working on a top that I'd given B's mom & she had headaches every time she worked on it so she gave it back to me. It is already marked off for quilting so when I finish the cross-stitch I may get me a dacron bat and try my hand. I bought my black thread to start the wool quilt embroidery but haven't done a stitch yet. I'll have to practice a few stitches first.

I had a nice letter from Bessie today and was so glad to hear from them. You probably know they are home again and doing fine.

Hope you both are fine, too."

                 Love,

                       Bonnie

NOTE:  Freshmen weren't allowed to have cars on campus without special permission. Needless to say, I was thrilled to have one in spite of an early Sunday morning 30 minute commute each week!

For the picalilli recipe from the October 29, 1949 letter:  http://www.annbkennedy.blogspot.com/2012/07/october-29-1949-had-to-have-lunch-in.html