August 21, 1948 The Teeterbabe, The Two Teeth, The Grand Weather and Another Address

Dear Mother & Daddy,

"So glad to have your letter.  It seems like months since I was home and yet the time has just flown.  I have so much company and we've been going a lot.  After B comes home at 2:00 we almost always go to the store or somewhere.  Bobby begins to jump when he sees the car.  I wish you could see him in the Teeterbabe now.  He discovered how to jump and he really makes that thing fly.  We washed the seat part and it fits better now.

Steve meets his cousin, Bobby, in June, 1948

Bobby is beginning to look funny now that those two upper teeth are showing so much.  He can really hang on to things with those teeth now.  We weighed him on Faith's scales and he weighs about 21 lbs.  I knew the clinic scales were wrong.  We couldn't get an appointment with the Dr. till Sept. 8 and I guess we'll start his shots then.  He eats an egg yolk now and I'm going to start potato soon.  It sure is nice to put him to bed right after his supper and he goes right to sleep and sleeps till about 6:30.  We have a real nice sitter.  She is a professor's daughter and lives on the block.

Monday night we went to a concert at the college--an opera star.  She was very good and so pretty.  Thurs. night we had supper with a professor's family up the street and tonight we're going to another place.  The people here are all so nice.

The shopping district in Bloomington is real nice and Normal has a few little stores that aren't bad.

I have my skirt almost done but haven't started sewing on the blouses.

B took out a $10,000. insurance policy this week.  We have wanted to take more for a long time and the longer we wait the higher the rates get so we have it settled at last.

I'm sure glad your toe is better.  It looked awful.  How is your arm?  Did you burn it real bad?

How is Grandma?  And everyone?  We have been having grand weather.  We keep the house closed and it stays real cool."

           Lots of love,

                   B, Bonnie & Baby

NOTE from Ann:  In August of 1948, the Alger Hiss story began to emerge.  Early in the month, a senior editor of Time, Whittaker Chambers,  testified before the HUAC and implicated Alger Hiss as a member of a large Communist spy group that had been in operation within the US government since the 1930s.  Hiss was the Chairman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at the time, and was a prominent State Department worker during WWII.  For more on this story:  https://files.nyu.edu/th15/public/bird.html