November 18 and 25, 1950 Coughs and Colds, A House on the String, Bonnie Sneaks Out, A Bedroom on Order and Sugar Cookies

Dear Mother & Daddy,

"Bobby and Ann are asleep and B has gone to the grocery store so it is pretty quiet around here.  Bobby's cold seems to be almost gone but Ann took it and although it is better she still has a bad cough.  I take her to the Dr. tomorrow for her check-up and am anxious to see what he says.  We are still feeding her twice at night but of course the skim milk doesn't stay with her like whole milk would.  She simply can't take the whole milk, though.

We have another house on the string but I don't know what will come of it.

Horace and Mabel don't think they can come Thanksgiving but may change their minds.  If they don't come and all the kids are o.k. we will eat with Wheelers.

We are going to a party tonight and Eve is going to stay with the kids.  Marge went home for the week-end.  There is a tea Sunday for new faculty people but since Marge is gone we won't get to go.

I went to the Education Wives luncheon yesterday.  Bobby slept the whole time I was gone and didn't know a thing about it.

I'm having a time getting snowsuits for the kids--have ordered twice for Bobby and three times for Ann.  We still don't have them and it's cold enough that we need them too.

Charlotte soon has a birthday.  I'll send her something soon.  When the kids can't go out it is awfully hard to get extra things done.

Bobby and I made cookies one afternoon and I let him do all the cutting.  He sure had a wonderful time and of course, the cookies were all shapes.

I didn't get this finished yesterday and now it is time to go to the Dr. with Ann so I'll have to stop.

We didn't take the house--was $8500. and took 20 tons to heat the thing.  Maybe we'll still find one."

               Love,

                  Bonnie

November 25, 1950


Dear Mother & Daddy,

"Your letter came real early this week and we were glad you are better, Mother.  It was good to talk to you Saturday night.  You both sounded so good.

We are sure glad we didn't plan to come home.  The roads are glazed and it has been 0 most of the day.  There is quite a lot of snow on the ground too.  Bobby just loves it.  We wrapped him up this morning and let him play a while.  His snowsuit still hasn't come and his old one is almost to his knees.  I finally found Ann one.  It is yellow and she looks so sweet.

I sent Charlotte crepe for a dress for her birthday.  I wanted to make it and never had time to even look for a pattern.

We ordered our bedroom set today from the same place we got our dining room furniture.  I wanted the same color but they aren't making it anymore.  It is blond mahogany, though.  We got a double dresser with a 48" mirror and twin beds which we plan to use as one bed.  We couldn't buy an oversize bed so got them instead.

Aunt Ione called Tuesday night to ask us up there for Thanksgiving but we had already planned to go to Jim and Eve's.  I took salad, rolls and pies and Eve cooked a half turkey.  We sure had lots to eat and a good time.  The boys went to the football game (between our team and Rolla) but had to come home it was so cold.

Thanks for the paper.  We enjoyed it a lot.

I can't remember what I told you about Ann.  She weighs 12 lbs. 12 oz. which is a lb. and 12 oz. overweight.  She isn't real fat though.  She should be eating cereal, fruit, vegetables, meat, puddings and cottage cheese but she can't eat any but the cereal, applesauce and meat.  I have to be so careful about what I feed her or how much or it upsets her terribly.

How is Hortense?  She seems to have a time.  Where has Ray been and where has Chloe been?  You haven't said anything about them lately.

Aunt Ione wants us to come Sunday but the roads will have to be better before we can go."

            Lots of love,

                      Bonnie

NOTE:  News from Korea was very serious by November.  Truman's news conference began on a characteristically to-the-point note:

November 30, 1950

THE PRESIDENT. Good morning, everybody. Sit down.

[1.] I have got a statement I want to read to you. There will be copies available when you get ready to leave here. I will take it as slowly as I can.

[Reading] "Recent developments in Korea confront the world with a serious crisis. The Chinese Communist leaders have sent their troops from Manchuria to launch a strong and well-organized attack against the United Nations forces in North Korea. This has been done despite prolonged and earnest efforts to bring home to the Communist leaders of China the plain fact that neither the United Nations nor the United States has any aggressive intentions toward China. Because of the historic friendship between the people of the United States and China, it is particularly shocking to us to think that Chinese are being forced into battle against our troops in the United Nations command.

"The Chinese attack was made in great force, and it still continues. It has resulted in the forced withdrawal of large parts of the United Nations command. The battlefield situation is uncertain at this time. We may suffer reverses as we have suffered them before. But the forces of the United Nations have no intention of abandoning their mission in Korea."  http://trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/viewpapers.php?pid=985