March 18, 1942 - "Another One For the Blonde."

According to the family story I'm familiar with, Jim and Ruth's courtship started off like a typical romantic comedy.  They met at a town dance in (probably) Timber Lake, and she thought he was rather cocky.

Of course, like most romantic comedies, we can see how this was bound to turn out.  He must have worn her down eventually (maybe it was that mythical gift of blarney), because after a few months of acquaintance they were engaged, and by March 1942 at the latest they were exchanging letters and seem on quite good terms.

The following letter was written from Eagle Butte, S.D., where Jim was plotting cross-sections for what seems to be (based on the stationary) the State Highway Commission.

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Wednesday March 18, 1942

Dearest Ruthie,

Received your letter at 11: a.m., it is now 12:25[.]  I'll bet you are starting back to school, are you not?  Was really glad to hear from you, I think I've read your letter over about 4 times already.

Last night after supper, I wanted to see you or hear you so darn bad, I decided to call you.  So I looked in my pocket, found 62 cents - asked the operator how much the call would be, she said 56 cents so I told her not to waste any time getting you.  You said you wondered if I miss you as much as you miss me, well honey, I think of you all the time, - yesterday for instance Gene and I were plotting cross-sections, and I read the same one to him three times, it took us 20 minutes to correct it.  Gene said "there's another one for the Blonde" and he was right, cuz I was thinking of you.

Monday nite, [Travie], Gene, Ken & I were invited over to  [Warne's] (he is the 5th one of our crew) to help eat his birthday cake, we sure did a good job of it, - we played cards until about 12, then came home to bed.

I almost came to Dupree last night, after talking to you.  I came up stairs, shaved etc. then went over to Gene's room and listened to Red Skeltons - (did you?)  I almost fell asleep on his bed, so he and Ken went down town and I came over to my room and went to bed - at 9:05 P.M - and slept until 7:30 this morning.

I really hope you had a good time Ruthie, I'll feel much better if you always enjoy yourself, so there too!  Did Phyl. dance last night?   Or did she ride in a pick-up all night? -slam! slam! - tell her I don't mean a thing by it.

Well Gene and Ken have just left for work, so suppose I'd better write finis, to this.

I'm expecting to be called away anytime, I got a letter from mother this morning, saying my aunt was in the hospital - heart attack, -  Dr. said there was very little chance. - so if you don't hear from me for a couple days, you'll know what's wrong.

Well Beautiful, must close for now, but write to me real soon will ya?  Cuz- 

I love you - very much,

Jim

[Postscript] What do you think of the writing material Bushfield gave me?  

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It looks like I've inherited my grandpa's fondness for a heavy use of the hyphen.

A note on these transcripts:  I am trying to remain as faithful as I can to the form of the letters.  I will reproduce his use of punctuation, spelling, and spacing as much as I can.  If I ever add or change anything for the sake of clarity, I'll put it in brackets [like this.]  I'll also be using brackets if there is a name or word that I can't figure out, as with a couple of names above.  I'll be posting scans of the actual letters, so if anyone can decipher those words, let me know and I'll edit them in.

On another note, I'm not very experienced with blogging, and would like to know if it's possible to do things like footnotes, or change fonts within the post text.  If you are more blog savvy than me, help me out!

Also, I've had a couple of people wonder how they can stay updated with these posts.  There should now be a couple of options for subscribing to the blog, either through an RSS feed like Google Reader, or through email.  You'll find those along the left side of the page.

Thanks for reading!