April 19, 1943 Suits, "The Corn is Green", "Tobacco Road" and Something About Eleanor's Speech

 Dear Mother & Daddy,

"We were glad to get your letter.  It had been almost a week since we had any mail and then got five letters at once.

It was warm enough today that I wore my spring coat to church.  It looks real nice after I got it cleaned.  I have a new many blue hat (felt), a new gray dress and new red shoes.  They are Red Cross shoes and real comfortable.  I'm going to get a new navy purse.  I'm saving my dress to wear Easter.  Suits are entirely too expensive here for me to be interested.  I found one I like pretty well, but it was very light weight and $39.95, so I just forgot about suits.  B has to have a new suit, if I can ever get him down town long enough to try one on.  He sticks so close to school that he never gets down town.

There is a Dames meeting Wed. night and I'll try to go to that.  We haven't been any place except to a play--"The Corn is Green" with Ethel Barrymore.  It was wonderful and she is certainly a wonderful actress.  She looks just like all of the Barrymores and she's a little on the stout side.  "Tobacco Road" is coming in about a week and I want to see it.  The picture wasn't any good but I want to see the play just to say I've seen it because it has run longer on Broadway than any other play ever did.

For our anniversary B gave me some red roses and a red Lady Buxton wallet with some money in it.  I was certainly pleased.

I wish we had some of your milk and cream.  We give .55 for butter and .47 for eggs.  Everything else is just as high.

Graduation exercises here are going to be very simple.  B and Sully will get their Master's, but it isn't definite when it's going to be.

Answer soon and I hope this gets to you quicker than the last one."

                                      Lots & lots of love,

                                                  B & Bonnie



NOTE from Ann:  I have continued to look for the text of Eleanor Roosevelt's speech to the Dames, without any luck yet.  However, I have found a transcript of a BBC broadcast during her trip to England in November, 1942.  If you recall, the Dames had originally planned for Eleanor's visit to be at that time, but her trip changed that plan.  Since we know that her talk was about her trip and included praise for the women of Great Britain,  it seems to me that there is a good possibility that her talk included similar remarks as to those in the broadcast.  Here is the link:  http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/documents/radio/rad19421108.cfm For those who might be interested,  Eleanor's "My Day" entries contain a brief mention of the visit with the Dames.  Whatever the content of her address to the Dames, my sense is that it had a profound influence on Bonnie who had a life-long passion for, and knowledge about politics.
http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1943&_f=md056454