November 18, 1944 The Family Chat, The Rocking Horse,The Chair Patterns and Thanksgiving Greetings from Churchill and Roosevelt

Dear Mother & Daddy,

"We have been having some real winter.  It really did snow Thursday afternoon but it turned to rain and didn't stay on the ground.

I'm so sorry Beulah is having stomach trouble.  I hope she'll go to the doctor and not let it get bad like Daddy's has been.  Did you find out what was wrong with Marjorie and Roger?  We haven't heard from them since we came home.  I guess they haven't time to write.

I would like to be with you to help pick out your furniture.  It will be pretty hard on you if you go on the bus.  All of the stores here are ready for Christmas.  I haven't had time to do any shopping yet.

We're just as busy as ever.  B tries to read a lot for his dissertation and it seems that my work is never done.  Next week we have Thurs. and Fri. off for Thanksgiving so maybe we can catch up on some things.  We plan to eat at home Thanksgiving and have a couple up for dinner Friday.

We had a letter from Mabel and they are back in Alabama and very relieved about the overseas business.

I thought Daddy and Nobel might be interested in these clippings.

We have a Dames meeting this week and are going to do hospital work.

There simply isn't any news and B is waiting to mail this.  Have a nice Thanksgiving and we'll be thinking of you."

                                  Lots of love,

                                            B & Bonnie

B's brother, Horace, stationed in Alabama during the War

Mabel

 NOTES from Ann:  To hear Churchill's Thanksgiving address, click the link.
http://www.archive.org/details/AmericasThanksgiving1944

And: By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation In this year of liberation, which has seen so many millions freed from tyrannical rule, it is fitting that we give thanks with special fervor to our Heavenly Father for the mercies we have received individually and as a nation and for the blessings He has restored, through the victories of our arms and those of our allies, to His children in other lands.
For the preservation of our way of life from the threat of destruction; for the unity of spirit which has kept our Nation strong; for our abiding faith in freedom; and for the promise of an enduring peace, we should lift up our hearts in thanksgiving.
For the harvest that has sustained us and, in its fullness, brought succor to other peoples; for the bounty of our soil, which has produced the sinews of war for the protection of our liberties; and for a multitude of private blessings, known only in our hearts, we should give united thanks to God. 

To the end that we may bear more earnest witness to our gratitude to Almighty God, I suggest a nationwide reading of the Holy Scriptures during the period from Thanksgiving Day to Christmas. Let every man of every creed go to his own version of the Scriptures for a renewed and strengthening contact with those eternal truths and majestic principles which have inspired such measure of true greatness as this nation has achieved. Now, Therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, in consonance with the joint resolution of the Congress approved December 26, 1941, do hereby proclaim Thursday the twenty-third day of November 1944 a day of national thanksgiving; and I call upon the people of the United States to observe it by bending every effort to hasten the day of final victory and by offering to God our devout gratitude for His goodness to us and to our fellow men. In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed. DONE at the City of Washington this first day of November in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-four and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and sixty-ninth. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT Citation: Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Proclamation 2629 - Thanksgiving Day, 1944," November 1, 1944. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=72460.