January 22, 1972 The Gloomy Day, The Office, The Entertaining, The Promise and The Chosen

Dear Mother,

"It's a gloomy, nasty day but not very cold. Everything is so dirty. It will take a good hard rain to wash things clean but it is misting just enough to be unpleasant.

B has gone to the office to work and I've been working in the kitchen. We are having a few people for dinner tonight so I'm getting ready for that. I'm so behind with entertaining I'll never catch up.

I had a letter from Beulah this week and I was glad to know she was feeling better. She had better take things easy for awhile.

I'm glad Barton is fixing up your tax papers. He'll know all about it and maybe it won't amount to much. It shouldn't anyway.

I'm glad Uncle Francis is home and hope he can stay comfortable. His legs will probably stay swollen. Bob says that in dropsy the heart doesn't pump hard enough to keep circulation going as it should and fluid collects. There isn't anything to do about it because the heart just isn't strong enough. It is common, I guess.

I'm glad Marjorie finally bought the tiller. That's one more thing off your mind.

Ann and Bob are still talking about graduate schools so they still don't know where they will go. There aren't too many schools that offer the kind of program Bob needs so he may have to go wherever he can get in.

They are still traveling around to see the country around Philadelphia. They had been to New York to see the section of the city where the Hasidic Jewish people live. Ann says they look like Amish people but I never heard of them. They had been reading The Promise  and The Chosen which takes place in this area so they went to see for themselves. They had a trip planned to Hershey.

I'm still cross-stitching like everything but there is so much work on this quilt it doesn't seem that I do anything. I haven't even started on yours. Are you wishing you had it to work on? I keep thinking my quilting lady will call me but she hasn't. She still has my name on her list. I don't think I want Mrs. Allen to do any more quilts for me. I'd rather wait a long, long time.

I tell you this every week but stay away from the flu. Don't go visit the nursing home as long as there is any sign of it around. One of the hospitals here has limited visitors for weeks because of it but things are better now so maybe the worst of it is over. This kind of weather is the kind that seems to help flu and colds spread. One day is warm and the next freezing.

Hope you are fine."

                    Love,

                       Bonnie

NOTE:  The ad for Camel filters (above) is just another of the worst ads of the decade.