June 2, 1951 Getting Ready to Move and Coming Home

Dear Mother & Daddy,

"We're having real summer tonight but have had a fire part of the week.  Bobby likes it warm so he doesn't have to wear overalls.

We won't be able to move until next Sat. morning.  Graduation is that afternoon and it is going to be awfully hard but that's the earliest we could do it.  The movers will be here early so we hope to have everything over to the other place before noon.  We will eat our meals with Toni so we won't have to bother with them.  If all goes as planned we will come home on Mon. the 11th.  Summer session begins the next Monday.

I guess you went to Elm Grove on Memorial Day.  We spent the morning washing the kitchen ceiling and walls.  After that we were too tired to do anything but take a bath.  We aren't doing any more cleaning except to sweep out and wash the bathroom & kitchen floors after we are out.

B's folks have borrowed a crib for us so we won't have to bring one.  We are going to bring the couch cushions with us since we don't have to bring a crib.  It will be easier than boxing them.

This is the last letter we'll write before we come home unless something comes up.  Hope you are both fine."

                      Lots of love,

                              Bonnie

Richland in the 1940s (Photo from newspaper clipping from the collection of Tommy Henson)

           

Still on Pine Street is the Richland Hardware Store where you will find anything and everything you might need--appliances, carpet and furniture, nails, keys, seeds, tools and every type of good advice and hardware imaginable.  Still going strong after nearly a century.

                       
And just up the street, also still going strong is Warren's Department Store.  There you will find boots, jeans, dry goods and about anything else you might need. 

NOTE:  Bonnie's grandparents and aunt on her mother's side are buried in Elm Grove, just outside of Richland.  Going home always meant visits to the cemetery in order to decorate graves.  Large buckets of flowers of whatever type happened to be in bloom were always loaded into the car.  As a child, "going home" always meant a trip to Richland--something we all adored and still do.  Having just spent several days there recently,  I am reminded of all that is good about small town life, about roots, and most important of all, time with family.