March 14, 1953 Playing Around, Birds Beginning to Sing, The Colds are Gone and The Notion of a Spring Coat

McCall's magazine, Feb., 1953

 Dear Mother & Daddy,

"Ann is playing around so I don't know how far I'll get with this.  It takes me so long to finish anything for I have to stop so many times.  Bobby has been to school and is trying to take a nap because this is circus night at school and one of us will take him.  He still misses his nap once in a while.  Phyllis, our sitter, is going to take him to the movie at school tomorrow evening so he has a big schedule for the week-end.

The weather has been wonderful.  We've had a lot of rain but it has stayed fairly warm and when the sun shines it is really bright.  We saw two robins this morning and the birds are beginning to sing so maybe spring is not far off.   Our colds are gone for once and Bob's appetite is picking up fast.  Maybe the worst part of our winter is over.

I have to solicit for Red Cross but haven't really got started yet.  I got so far behind with everything when I had the flu that I simply can't get caught up.

B and some other teachers made a tape-recording which is to be broadcast this afternoon.  He said it didn't sound so good when they played it back at school but it will probably broadcast all right.

I've just about given up the notion of a spring coat.  It would be lots easier and quicker to make than a suit but I can't find the material I want.  I've looked and looked and even wrote to St. Louis for samples but none suit me so I'll just wait and maybe I'll run onto some material I do like or find a ready made coat in the after Easter sales.  We drove to Peoria last Saturday and I looked for coating but had no luck.  One place had tweed suitings of all kinds on sale so I got a beautiful piece of blue tweed.  I may just save it for next fall.  We didn't stay long in Peoria for it started to snow hard and the streets got so slippery. 

My housecleaning is going to wait until we can stop using the furnace.  The soft coal makes so much dirt and then we'll have fingerprints all over everything after Wheelers come.  So I'll begin cleaning after they leave.  Five kids can make a lot of smudges on things.

I hope you are both fine."

      Lots of love,

                 Bonnie

NOTE:  In the news of March 12, 1953, a British bomber was shot down in the Berlin air corridor by Soviets who claimed that the Avro Lincoln B-2 had fired first.  Seven crew members died.  For more background, and Churchill's explanation to Parliament, use this link:  http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=1953-03-17a.2067.2

The incident made news around the world and appeared is Eleanor Roosevelt's My Day column as well.  Her comments below:

"The first news to greet us here was the attack on a British bomber by two Soviet jet fighter planes. There is, of course, great speculation as to whether "these mistakes" are due to new policy under Premier Malenkov.

It is going to make it increasingly difficult to preserve peace along the borders in Europe. The intention might well be to distract our attention from the Asiatic area and focus our anxiety on the European theatre. This would allow for a surprise attack, in Korea.

This is, of course, all speculation. But at the present time everybody speculates; nobody is sure of anything, and the tension among the people is high. How one is ever to get at the real reason behind these attacks is difficult to imagine because no nation is willing to say that it fired first and accept responsibility for so doing." 

  http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1953&_f=md002482

And from Eleanor on the lighter side: