Dear Mama and Rachel,
It is the day before Christmas and though I know I should be so happy with my own sweet angel baby Mary who lies right here beside me as I write this letter, I will tell you the truth. I am weepy, and cannot hold back my tears. Why do you reckon this is so, when Mary and me have everything we need here?
Why, we have got a room of our very own nestled up under the eaves of Bill’s parents’ house, it is a nice little room too, with a low roof that slopes up to a point at the top and the prettiest wallpaper featuring a trellis design covered all over in the most beautiful morning glories you can possibly imagine. They are a deep purply blue, and the trellis is white, it is lovely beyond belief. You know I have always been partial to morning glories. Also in this room there is a big iron bed painted white, a rocking chair, a night table with a funny green lamp that has a yellow lampshade with ball fringe all around it, and a little homemade desk where I now sit to write you this letter. There is also a washstand with a Blue Willow pitcher and bowl and an old black-painted trunk where I can lay my Mary down when I change her diapers. She has a little bassinet as well, very old, it has been in Bill’s family for years and years though nobody knows where it came from.
So Mary and I are well equipped, and should not want for a thing in the new year of our Lord 1945, not a thing in the world except to come back to West Virginia, which we cannot do.
It is so different here, all flat brown fields which stretch out from this farmhouse in three directions as far as the eye can see. But in the fourth direction, South—now this is the view from our little round window—there is the wide dark Neuse River moving slowly and mysteriously toward the Ocean which I have not yet seen and can scarcely imagine though Bill has promised to take us when he comes home. And way across the river, there’s the town. I can see it better at night when its lights make a pretty reflection in the water, like jewels. In fact the name of the movie theater in town is the Bijou which means jewel if I am correct. It is the colored lights of the Bijou which twinkle in the water come dark, how I love to look at them.
Still I wish I could have come back up home to have my baby, and stayed with you all until Bill gets out of the War, but he would not hear a word about it, not a word, saying that “No,” his own parents would take good care of his wife and baby. Well, it is the other way around, if you ask me, since Bill’s mother is sick so much. Mrs. Pickett is a woman who was beautiful once upon a time, I know it is true for I have seen the pictures. I need to remember that she got spoiled because she was the only child of wealthy parents, and had her way in everything, that this was her parents’ house and farm which Bill’s father is fast running into the ground, according to all. Come to mention it, I’m finding out that Mr. Slone Pickett has got a reputation around here as a lifelong ne’er-do-well, and a gambler and drunkard besides.
I must say that Bill did not breathe a word of all this to me, and in fact I wonder if he even knows the extent of his father’s Reputation. But it may have been that Mr. Pickett minded his P’s and Q’s better when Dennis and Bill were here working with him, and has only hit this new low since their departure for the War.
I hasten to add that Mr. Pickett does not bother me in any way, in fact he is charming to a fault, and seems devoted to little Mary. He likes to bounce her on his knee and sing aloud, “This is the way the Lady rides,” etc. But he is seldom here, always gone off “seeing to business,” as he puts it, which means sitting around with the other old fellows at Bryce’s Tavern across the river, playing cards and talking, or out in his car visiting people. Mr. Pickett loves to go visiting, and I must say I cannot blame him too much, as Mrs. Pickett is not very good company. But this leaves it all up to me, for Mrs. Pickett is quite demanding and it takes both me and old Lorene working double-time just to pacify her.
Mostly she lies in bed reading magazines and romance novels, with her teeth took out and laid on the bedside table. First she wants one thing then another. She eats about 8 little meals every day instead of 3 like normal people, because of an ulcer, she says, and everything has to be just so. For instance you have to cut all the crusts off the bread or she will not eat it.
I don’t think I’ve ever described Bill’s parents to you. In appearance Mrs. P. is tall and thin with arms and legs like pipe cleaners, an unusually large head, big blue eyes, and skin so white it looks like milkglass. By contrast, Mr. Pickett is still a handsome man, with thick white hair and eyebrows, though his belly hangs over his belt making him look a little like Humpty Dumpty. He dresses up every day fit to kill, he is quite the dandy. He would die if he knew he looks like Humpty Dumpty.
I must say it is a surprise to me that my Bill ever issued forth from this unlikely Union, as Bill is such a plain and straightforward fellow, so likable and easy-going, or so it seems to me, though I swear I have nearly forgot his face now as he has been gone already for longer than I knew him before the War.
I have thought and thought about that day we met, until I wonder if I really remember it at all, or if it is merely a story I made up and now play again and again in my mind like a movie over at the Bijou. I don’t know if I have told you all the particulars of it or not, but I would like to, and I hope you will not mind me going on at length, for I miss you so much, and love to think of you reading this long letter from me.
You remember that I had come down to North Carolina on that trip with Adelaide Harper to visit her Aunt and Uncle who planned to travel down the Neuse for five days on their new houseboat, and Adelaide was to come with them, as the trip would be Educational. Remember how much I loved Adelaide, Mama, and how I begged to come? Do you ever wish you had said “No,” I wonder now, and do you ever think about where I might be instead, and what I might be doing? Instead of nursing a baby, I mean, on a lonely farm in the middle of brown fields gone to seed down here in North Carolina? For I do wonder about these things. I have time now to wonder, and think on everything, and I find myself thinking, “Oh, but if—” or “If only—” as it has struck me that our whole lives may be so determined, in the twinkling of an eye. Oh but I cannot imagine my life if I had never met Bill at all, this is the Truth.
I will never forget the day the houseboat ran against the bridge, that sudden awful Storm, almost a hurricane they said it was, and we were forced to seek shelter in the empty barn not a mile from where I now sit to write you this letter, and before we could properly get our wits about us, here came Bill to save us and bring us home. I remember that it was almost dark and we were so scared, Adelaide and me all hugged up together as tight as you please and crying to beat the band, when Bill appeared in the barn door with a smile as bright as the lantern he held in his hands.
“Now, girls, it can’t be all that bad!” he said. “Isn’t that right, Ma’am?” Now he was addressing Adelaide’s Aunt. “For here you are, safe and sound after all, and the storm has passed, and you’re to come along home with me and get some supper and dry your clothes.”
And so we followed him out across the great dark flooded fields, sinking to our ankles in water, which mattered not a whit at that point as we were soaked through and through already. Bill talked to Adelaide’s Uncle on the way, telling all the particulars of the Storm and the havoc it had wrought all up and down the river, while Adelaide and I held hands and strained to see Bill’s shape in the gloom ahead. I have to say, I was pretty much taken with Bill from the get-go, as you used to say, Mama. Still, I thought that if he were to take notice of either of us, it would be Adelaide of course, for she was the pretty one with the curly blond ringlets admired by all.
When we finally got to Bill’s house, it quickly became apparent that his grand invitation was ill-considered, for there sat his Mother wrapped up in a shawl by a sputtering oil lamp, and no supper either visible or forthcoming. I saw the situation and took charge, since Adelaide’s Aunt had to go lie down immediately and Adelaide herself did not know how to do anything of that nature. And you know how I have always loved to cook.
“Do you have any cornmeal?” I asked Bill’s mother, who had not the foggiest notion.
But Bill found the cornmeal for me, and some Bourbon Whiskey for Adelaide’s Uncle, and then the lights came back on and I set to work in earnest, wearing by now an old flannel nightshirt belonging to Bill’s Father, and going barefoot in the kitchen. By and by Adelaide and her Aunt reappeared, wearing some of Mrs. Pickett’s clothes, and her Uncle cheered up under the influence of the Whiskey, and the whole evening began to take on a festive aspect. As for myself, I could scarcely cook, for I kept stealing glances at Bill.
“Ah, now he will fall in love with Adelaide,” I thought, when they two fell into conversation, for he had not said one word directly to me. Anyway I boiled potatoes and fried up some corn dodgers the way you taught me, Mama, and then I asked for ham and was told to go down to the cellar to get it, and did, still barefooted. I recall how cool and damp the bricks felt to my feet. But what a surprise when I turned around to find Bill right there, right behind me, he had followed without a word.
“Now what is your name again?” he asked without preamble and I said, “Mary Bird Hodges,” though I scarce could talk, and he said, “And are you spoken for?” and I said, “No,” forgetting all about William Isley in that instant, and Bill said, “Well, then,” and picked me up and kissed me hard, and I saw Stars, I swear I did, before my very eyes, and could not breathe when he set me back down. Then all of a sudden we fell to laughing, we were both of us laughing like crazy, for no reason at all, and on and on until we had to sit down on the floor, we were so out of breath. Then Bill leaned over and kissed me again, just a little kiss, and by the time we had got ourselves back together and gone upstairs with the ham, we had an understanding, or I felt we had an understanding, and both Adelaide and her Aunt later said it was plain to them as well, that we were glowing, and apt to break into giggles when nothing was funny that anyone else could see.
So this is the exact circumstances of how we met, which I take great pleasure in remembering over and over alone in my little room with my little Mary, and in writing to you. For it is my fondest hope, Rachel, that you will one day meet a man as fine as Bill, and fall in love as I have done.
You know the rest, how he came up home to call on us, and stayed a week, and then came back and talked me into eloping, which I know you have never forgiven me for yet, Mama, I reckon I cannot blame you. But I had to have Bill, that was all there was to it. And there was problems with Mr. and Mrs. Pickett, Bill did not say what at the time, but now I see that she would have opposed the match, thinking nobody in this world is good enough for her or hers. Well, be that as it may, I could not have done otherwise. I would have followed Bill anywhere on the earth. I hope you have come to understand this, and are thinking about me more kindly than at first. This course has not been altogether easy for me either, as I am trying to tell you. It is not a bed of roses by any means.
And now I fear that this farm is teetering right on the edge of Ruin, though no one has discussed it with me of course, nor will they. But Mr. Pickett is evading certain creditors, of this I am sure. With Dennis God knows where in the Pacific and my own poor Bill off in New Guinea, both so far away.
Oh, who can know the Future? Who would have ever thought to find me here, or my best friend Adelaide dead of pneumonia, all these long months? It breaks my heart to think of Adelaide, as it breaks my heart to think of the mountains, and all of you.
I just know that Granddaddy will shoot off the gun on Christmas morning, that you will cook a hen for dinner, Mama, Daddy will make the eggnog, and Great-Aunt Lydia will give everybody those awful-looking crocheted placemats again that she has been making for years and years. It makes me laugh to think about them! I send a special hug to the little Twins, and love to Daddy, and to everybody. I trust you are all well, and have a fine holiday, and that you miss me too, at least a little, and think about me down here in North Carolina so far from home. Oh, now I am crying again. But I have made my bed and I will lie in it the way I was taught, you may rest assured of that. I will do you proud.
Bill writes that it is real hot in New Guinea, and that he has bought some little carved wooden animals from the Natives, for our Mary, and that he loves me. I know this is true, though it fills me with fear too, for Bill does not really know me, nor I him. Sometimes I wonder if it is possible for any person to know any other, I mean to really know them? Often I sit in this rocking chair by my little round window nursing Mary and looking out across the big slow river at the lights of town twinkling so far away, and I feel lonesome beyond words. But I will put my faith in God and trust him to take good care of me and my baby while we all wait for sweet Bill to come home.
So, Happy New Year 1945
From Your Loving,
Birdie
P.S. This is just about the only thing I can get Mrs. Pickett to eat, so I try to make it as often as I can, in spite of rationing.
3 eggs
3 cups milk
½ cup sugar
½ teas. vanilla
Beat eggs, add sugar and milk. Cook in double boiler until mixture will coat a spoon. Add vanilla when cool.
Dec. 22, 1951
Dear Mama and Rachel,
First, good luck on Robert Tipping, Rachel! He sounds perfect, though I should think it would be a big responsibility to be a minister’s wife. Both of you, please keep me posted. I promise that I will be a better correspondent than I have been lately. My excuse is that I have been saving up my thoughts and news for this annual Christmas Letter, though it is worth my life to write it, as baby Ruthie is already walking and into everything, she leads me a merry chase! My little Mary is still as good as gold, however, playing nonstop with her brother Joe, they are not a bit of trouble but rather a blessing to me. It may be because they are scarcely two years apart in age—Joe was Unexpected, shall we say—that they are so close in temperament as well, acting more like Twins than like Brother and Sister. Mary has always been a serious child. I think the circumstances of her birth, plus all that time alone with me when I was so homesick in the beginning, have made her grave beyond her years. And then her daddy’s homecoming was bittersweet at best, with the whole family mourning Dennis, so recently fallen at Corregidor. Mary never saw her Uncle Dennis, but she took all these events to heart, I believe, the way children will—for children do know everything happening in a household, whether anyone tells them or not.
But Joe’s birth brought Mary back out into the sunshine, affording her the greatest Joy. She did everything for him from the first, and as he’s grown, you cannot pry them apart. Everybody has marveled at it, the sweetness of brother and sister, their grave concern for each other at all times. Why, they even have a little language all their own, which they have had ever since Joe learned to talk, and sometimes they will still fall into it, especially if others are present and they want to speak privately to one another. It used to worry Bill, he is so down-to-earth. But I said, Where is the harm? As long as they are capable of speaking plain English when they need to?
And they are capable, they are smart as a whip, both of them, and doing fine in school. While at home they race through their chores in order to have more time for these endless games of “Pretend” which they never tire of, games which come right out of their heads, where they are knights and ladies or Robin Hood or saints of old or the Hardy Boys or whatever. I swear, you can’t tell what they will come up with!
Ruthie by contrast is not reflective at all but very Active, she reminds me of a little puppy. I have had to go through the whole living room, putting everything breakable up where she can’t reach, something I never worried about with either Mary or Joe.
But concerning children, the big news is that Bill’s sister in Richmond has died of a fever and now his nephews are coming to live with us too. Bill invited them for the remainder of the year, he says they can help him farm. I just about died when he told me. For I have not got enough hands as it is, now that Mr. Pickett has disappeared and I am taking care of Bill’s mother full-time, and I have to say, she is the most Demanding woman in the world. She just lies in bed wanting first one thing and then another, for instance I have to keep her well supplied with snuff and ice water at all times. Of course Bill takes up for her, saying she is brokenhearted at the death of Dennis, not to mention Mr. Pickett’s desertion. Bill believes that his mother really is sick, too, saying that she has “congestive heart failure,” which I think she has made up out of whole cloth, having read about it in a magazine. Oh, I know better than to say a word. Though secretly I think she is healthy as a horse, and will outlive us all.
But my Bill is so generous, he does not even have anything bad to say about his Father, which astounds me. He says his father had a run of hard luck, that’s all, and that Dennis’s death pushed him over the edge. I did not mention the grocer’s daughter who is rumored to have left town at the same time as Mr. Pickett. When I asked Bill what he would do if Mr. Pickett should just show up on the front porch one day, Sober for a change, and ask to come back home, why Bill said he would take him in of course, and chided me for feeling otherwise. “Birdie,” he said, “where is all that famous Christian charity I have heard so much about?” Bill was just grinning ear to ear, for he knew he had me there.
My dear Bill remains as good-natured and sweet as ever despite our financial problems. Those clear brown eyes of his are always fixed upon the Future, full of hope. Now he is trying something new, called soybeans. The government is urging everybody to plant them. They are the crop of the future apparently, to be used in a lot of different ways, though they are not a bit good to cook with, tasting awful.
By the way we sent you a tin of peanuts on the train, I hope you got them in time for Christmas. It still never really seems like Christmas to me down here, even now, for it scarcely snows and of course I never get over missing the mountains. Yet I hasten to say I am a Happy Woman, for the longer I live with Bill, the more I love and respect him, as he is a truly good man. He would give anybody the very shirt off his back, he is famous for it.
And Bill is fun, too, I hasten to add, for pure goodness can wear on a person over time. Why, just the other night, for instance, he came in and slipped up on me from behind, and kissed my ear and untied my apron, and announced that we were going dancing.
“Dancing!” I said. “Why, where will we do that?” for there is no place around here to dance.
“Right here,” Bill said with a whoop, “at Uncle Bill’s Hot Spot,” and then he produced the Christmas gift which he had bought for me in town that day, a beautiful brand new Philco Radio. He just couldn’t wait until Christmas to give it to me! He plugged it in and turned it on, and soon the kitchen was filled with the lively music of Benny Goodman. Bill twirled me around and then we were jitterbug-ging like crazy, you know that both of us are real good dancers. After that came another tune, and then another. We danced on and on as the children crept into the kitchen one after another, Mary and Joe holding hands, while all the water boiled out of my potatoes and they burned up, I even had to throw away the pan. “Never mind!” Bill said, putting on my apron himself to cook us a big breakfast, bacon and eggs being the only food he knows how to cook. “Go on, honey!” he said to me. “Go take a nice long bath, I’ll call you when breakfast is ready.”
“Breakfast!” Mrs. Pickett fluttered into the kitchen like a little old moth, clinging to the cabinets. “Why, what in the world! Birdie, where do you think you’re going?” The last thing I saw was her scandalized old face as I headed off down the hall to draw up a deep bath, where I had a good laugh all by myself, in a ton of bubbles.
So you see that Bill has not been beat down yet by all our misfortunes with the farm, and remains near Perfect in my eyes. I just wish he would come to church with me but I can’t get him to, at least not yet. So I take my precious children, and pray for us all, and remain
Your loving,
Birdie
P.S. Mama, it’s fine with me that you pass my Christmas letters around if you want to. And since I know you are expecting another recipe from me, here it is, courtesy of Mrs. Eugenia Goodwillie at church, who is fat as can be, and always wears this bright green hat. I wish you could see her! Anyway, here goes —we have got a real tradition now, haven’t we?
1 cup butter (Judges 5:25)
3½ cups flour (I Kings 4:22)
3 cups sugar (Jeremiah 6:20)
2 cups raisins (I Samuel 30:12)
2 cups figs (I Samuel 30:12)
1 cup water (Genesis 24:17)
1 cup almonds (Genesis 43:11)
6 eggs (Isaiah 10:14)
1 tsp. honey (Exodus 16:31)
pinch of salt (Leviticus 2:13)
2 tsp. baking powder (I Corinthians 5:6)
spice to taste (I Kings 10:10)
Follow Solomon’s advice for making good boys and girls and you will have a good cake (Proverbs 23:14).
Christmas 1956
To Mama and Daddy, Rachel and Robert, and Other Dear Family and Friends,
I know you will excuse the lack of a Christmas letter from me last year, when you hear what we have been through, and do we ever have some Big News for you!
I was just thinking how God never sends us more than we can bear, and how what appears as Calamity can often be a blessing in disguise.
First, the Calamity of spring before last—which you know about already, but I want to tell you just how it was when it happened, so you will know how we felt at the time, and what it is like to be in a Flood. The first thing is, it does not happen all at once. It takes days. Days and days and days of too much rain, it is just a conversation piece for a while, as in, “Have you ever seen so much rain?” But then—and you are not sure exactly when this starts to hap-pen—you start feeling Blue, as there is never much sun to be seen, and the children start to get on your nerves. And then there comes the time that all conversation ceases whenever the rain starts up again on the old tin roof, and Bill puts down his newspaper, and stands, and starts to pace back and forth in the hall.
There are respites, of course. A morning, an afternoon of no rain for a change, when the men walk down to the end of the road and stand on the bank smoking cigarettes and looking out over the river, and nobody’s talking. By then the crops have been flooded out once, and it’s too wet to plant again. And it just keeps on raining, a light sprinkle, then a downpour, then a quick gusty shower, then another sprinkle. . . . But it never stops, not really, and this goes on for a month. On flat land, a Flood is a long time coming.
And in the meantime, everything changes. The river goes from being merely the distant scenic backdrop of the landscape to become an awful Force in and of itself, still slow but growing in speed and power every day, inching up its banks, with brown churning eddies and whirlpools and currents now in its broad expanse, so that to stand and watch it is to watch some huge and strong and ever-changing Monster come slowly to life. The willows on the banks stand half-submerged, trailing their branches forlornly downstream. One day the old boat shed that stood at the end of the road is gone, simply gone, and then the end of the road is gone too. Now we sit on chairs in the yard to watch the river, and now it is almost like a movie, something different every few minutes, as somebody’s doghouse floats past, then a washtub, a chair, logs and debris, a roof, a man’s straw hat, a rocking horse.
Word comes from everywhere: the bridge is out at Bar-berville, they are sandbagging at Duncan, they are already evacuating Little Point, downriver. We are glued to the radio. I start collecting rainwater. In the gathering excitement, the children run wild. And more news comes: they are evacuating Powell’s Neck, old man Burgess won’t leave, they tie him up and carry him out on a stretcher, his daughter has signed a paper. Miss Treadway, the piano teacher, is in hysterics, they have taken her to the Hospital.
Bill’s mother remains surprisingly calm in the face of this Disaster, in fact it comes to me that she is actually enjoying all the excitement. Her eyes glow like lamps in her yellow face and she never leaves the porch where she sits in state on the glider, wrapped up in blankets and wearing her Sunday hat, chatting with all who come by. For the first time ever, Bill is short with her, cutting her off in mid-sentence as she rambles on and on.
Not only that, but he spanks Ruthie—something he has never done before.
Of course Ruthie did scare us all to death by disappearing like that, gone for over two hours without thinking to tell any of us that she was going to see her little friend, whose parents had picked her up in a car and taken her home for a visit. We were frantic. Bill paddled her good, until everybody was crying, Joe above all, pulling at his daddy until Bill smacked him too, causing Joe to disappear for the rest of the afternoon. Bill was not himself. He seemed exhausted when it was over, a man in a daze. He went upstairs and lay down on our bed like a Corpse in a coffin, very stiff, with his hands folded up on his chest. I did not dare to mention the mud on the quilt, I believe we both knew by then that it would not matter. I tiptoed over to kiss my Bill but his face was Stone, and he lay exactly like that until the sheriff came to the door a few hours later and said that we would have to leave.
In a way, this was a relief. Bill got up. The children suddenly turned into little Angels, very helpful, and we all worked with a common purpose, loading up the car and truck, carrying everything else upstairs. We packed the attic full, and that room up under the eaves where I had stayed with my little Mary so long ago.
One of the last things I did before we left was to look out my little round window again, at a whole world gone wild, the mysterious dark river that I had loved, which had held so much promise somehow, now turned against us— wide, yellow, and Evil, rising every hour up the long green bank with its edging of lacy froth. The sun was out by the time we left, but it made no difference, of course, as the river was on the rise.
I couldn’t believe it—suddenly, it had turned into the prettiest afternoon. Joe and Mary whispered to each other all the way to Cartersville, playing their games, off in their own little world, and I was just as glad of it, for the Real World seemed too harsh that day for children, and I knew I was powerless to protect them, or any of us, from it.
For the first time in my life, I questioned God’s wisdom and His will, for I had prayed to Him all along, and yet He had done nothing, and had allowed this to happen to us. I was full of bitterness, and the bright sunshiny day only seemed to make it worse in my estimation, as if He was mocking me. We took shelter at the Presbyterian Church in Pasquotank, which was far enough inland to be judged safe. There we found sandwiches and coffee, and other children for our children to play with, and I must say that Bill’s mother seemed to enjoy the whole experience enormously.
I did not. My mind was filled with what must be happening back at home, and I remained cut off from my beloved husband, as from God. Bill went back out directly in the truck with the other men, and came back in the late afternoon with a set gray face. “It is over, Birdie,” he said, and turned away, but then in the night on the hard church floor, he broke and started crying and so was restored to me, and I thanked God, though I knew we had lost the farm.
One of the worst things about a flood is that—unlike a fire, which makes a clean sweep of everything—when the waters recede at last, everything is unfortunately Still There, and though it is all ruined beyond hope, there it yet is, to be dealt with. You feel like you ought to clean things up, you ought to be able to use them again, but the truth is, you cannot.
We had to walk across the muddy fields to our house, for the road was gone, and pull ourselves up through the open door, for the porch was gone. Inside we found a foot of stinking mud throughout the entire first story, and the biggest ugliest Catfish I have ever seen was flopping around on the kitchen floor. At that point, I just sat down in the mud and cried my eyes out. After all the work we— especially Bill—had put into that sorry farm, it broke my heart! At that point Joe caught the Catfish with his bare hands, and Bill killed it with a knife, and they carried it in a croker sack over to the church ladies, who put it in a big pot of chowder which they were making at the church. I couldn’t eat a bite of supper, I couldn’t get the awful picture out of my mind, how it looked as it flopped in the mud on my kitchen floor, with its awful grinning face, its wide smart eyes, those sweeping whiskers, oh I would have nightmares about that Catfish for months to come.
Well, to make a long story short, we lost the farm.
But I have to say, if it hadn’t happened, why, we would be out there still, I reckon, both of us, working our fingers to the bone every day, just trying to make ends meet. Bill would never have got up the nerve to get that bank loan and start the dime store. For Necessity truly is the Mother of Invention, as they say.
So now, here we are living in town, on the other side of that river which has receded of course and now flows within its banks as pretty as you please.
And our dime store is a real big Success! As some of you have heard from me already. Everybody comes to shop, as there is nothing like it for miles around. Bill sells everything you can think of, from nails to sheets to makeup. We’ve even got a popcorn machine! And a candy counter with candy corn, fudge, jellied orange slices, nonpareils, why you name it.
And I am the proud proprietor of Birdie’s Lunch, which we have built into one corner of the store. You know how much I have always loved to cook. Well, Birdie’s Lunch is very popular, I have to say. I am open for Breakfast and Lunch only, though some people buy their Supper and carry it home, especially on chicken and dumpling days. My meatloaf is another very popular item. Best of all is, I get to see Bill all day long, not only at supper time, when he is dog tired, as on the farm. And all the children work at the store with us, they all have jobs, and are a big help.
Last year at Eastertime, we had them all helping us to make Easter baskets. It took me and Bill and everybody else that works for us, plus the kids, we had formed a regular little Assembly Line. This was on a Sunday afternoon after church when the store was closed, several weeks before Easter. It was a cool rainy day as I recall, and I had made some coffee and chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies to give everybody, so we had kind of a Party Atmosphere, and we were all enjoying ourselves. We had boxes of Easter candy and little toy rabbits and bunnies and such as that, yellow and purple cellophane paper which came in long rolls, and several huge cardboard boxes filled with pink cellophane Easter straw. I was the one who tied the bows, I have always been very good at bows. We worked all afternoon. I was so busy, and having such a good time, that I didn’t even notice when Mary and Joe disappeared. Then suddenly it was time to go, and we couldn’t find them anywhere.
“Mary! Joe!” we called all over the store, and finally here they came, popping right up out of the last box of Easter straw, nearly scaring us all to death! They had crawled down under the straw, and fallen asleep there. Oh how we laughed! We are all enjoying the dime store.
Mary comes down to the store every day after school. From the very beginning, she has always “taken care of the dolls” for Bill, dusting them and fixing their hair, arranging them on the shelf. She makes up names for them, and a life story for each one. Sometimes I swear I don’t know what will become of our Mary, she is too smart for a little girl. I fear that she may have trouble adjusting to the world because of it. She is certainly “our little scholar,” making straight A’s in school. Why, Mary would rather read than eat! This is absolutely true.
Meanwhile Ruthie can scarcely sit still long enough to get her homework. She is crazy about Acrobatics and Tap Dancing, which she takes from a Miss Lovett who comes over from Goodlettsville and holds classes at the American Legion twice a week. There are many more opportunities here in town, which we are taking full advantage of.
Joe is a Boy Scout, for instance, he is so good with his hands and can make anything. Joe puts together the airplane and automobile models for display in the dime store, and sweeps the floor, and Bill pays him.
More than anything, Bill and I want these children to have the opportunity to go to college, which we never had. So we are all working together, and though the hours are long and sometimes it seems that we will never get this loan paid off, still we are all together, and the future looks bright to me as I see that God had a greater good in mind than we could envision when he sent us that flood, which is why I said at the beginning of this long letter, Calamity can often be a Blessing in Disguise.
Even old Mrs. Pickett likes our new life. Her personality is much improved. Bill has bought her a hearing aid and a new set of teeth, which make her look exactly like a horse, I have to say, but she sits now on a lawn chair in the front of the dime store talking to everybody, and everybody is amazed by how old she is, and how much she has got to say. Of course, I am not amazed, and I am glad she chooses to place her lawn chair by the Checkout instead of my lunch counter. P.S. Kids love these. They are good for Christmas giving, too, as they will keep in a tin for ages. I have made a ton of them this Christmas season.
Lots of love and a very
merry Christmas 1956
from your busy, busy, busy
Birdie
½ cup butter or margarine, melted
4½ teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1½ teas. salt
8 cups cereal (Cheerios and Chex)
1 cup nuts
1 cup pretzels
Mix well, bake 1 hour at 250°, stirring every 15 minutes.
Christmas 1962
Dear All,
If I thought I was busy before, I have to say, it is nothing compared to now, what with Mary and Joe in High School, and going off like firecrackers in every direction. I swear, there is so much for kids to do these days! I think it is wonderful. It is surely not a bit like when we were growing up in Blue Gap, and had to work so hard, and then find amusement among ourselves. I can still remember how much I hated to hoe that corn, and how that old burley tobacco would stick to your arms and hands. Those were hard times, I reckon, but they seem sweet to me now, and almost golden somehow, as seen through the haze of the years. Don’t you recall how we all used to sit out on the porch of an evening, and talk? Why, we would talk about everything, I reckon we didn’t have anything else to do, but my, those were some good stories we heard, weren’t they? Don’t you remember Granddaddy telling about the Ghost Dog? And old Aunt Lydia was so funny, without even knowing it. Don’t you remember that story she used to tell about the time when she was coming out of church and some woman behind her, I believe it was old Mrs. Green-leaf, said to her, “Why, Lydia, I’ll swear, honey, you look so pretty from the back!” Don’t you remember Lydia telling that, and then saying, “Now, girls, I don’t know whether I ought to get mad or not!” and asking all us little girls what we thought about it. We got so tickled at her, well it’s all so long ago, isn’t it? It was a Different World.
And nobody ever sits on the front porch here even though we have got one. We are all too busy, it seems, what with me and Bill down at the dime store all the time, and the kids in and out so fast, so busy with all their activities. When I think of our own front porch now, I think of the screen door slamming all day long. “Don’t slam the door!” I used to call out, “Don’t slam the door!” but now I scarcely bother. It is the pace of Modern Life which has made all the difference, even down here in such a pokey little town as ours. And if anybody today has a moment to sit, they are likely to sit in front of the television, which is wonderful, I have to say, you can always find something to be interested in. Mrs. Pickett has to watch her “story,” as she calls it, every afternoon, this being “Search for Tomorrow.” “Isn’t that Andrea Whiting just awful?” Mrs. Pickett will ask everybody, but she wouldn’t miss a day if it killed her.
The kids are fine, though Joe has gotten in a scrape or two, boys will be boys, I reckon. He is just crazy about a car, any car, and I must say that Bill aids and abets him in this pastime, having bought him three to date, which they are always “working on.” Joe is just as likely to be found under a car as driving it, and though I may complain about his dirty clothes and mediocre school reports, this is clearly his passion, and his talent.
I guess it will remain up to Mary to be my scholar, and in fact it looks as though she will be the Valedictorian of her class this June if she can keep her grades up. Or she may end up in a tie with Ernest Birdsong (a Brain). We are very proud of Mary who was awarded the Rotary Club Scholarship at a lovely Semi-formal Dinner in November, to be applied toward the college of her choice. She has applied to several schools, all of them fairly near by, as Bill says he could not stand for her to go too far from home. Her first choice is the Woman’s College in Greensboro, but we hope she will go to Longwood which is also a teachers’ college, and closer to us. Mary says she is going to be an English teacher. She idolizes Mrs. Diane Hope, her senior English teacher, who graduated from W.C. herself. (This is the big appeal of Greensboro.)
Mary also takes after me in liking to cook, in fact she won the 4-H Cooking Contest last spring with her Carrot Cake recipe, and would have won the Regional except that she forgot to wear a hairnet at the competition, I think this is so silly.
I have always privately hoped that Mary would make the most of her God-given writing talent, for she has been writing poems and stories ever since she was a little child. No one in this neighborhood will ever forget The Small Review, Mary’s newspaper, which she wrote all by herself and then got Joe to help her copy out by hand, and sell it door to door. Some of the news items were so funny, such as “Miss Mary Pickett and Miss Ruthie Pickett were taken on a shopping trip to Raleigh by their mother, Mrs. William Pickett of 110 Maple Avenue. They bought new shoes at Buster Brown and enjoyed the opportunity to look at the bones of their feet through a machine. Their bones are green.” How we all laughed at that! But I had to make Mary apologize to our neighbor across the street for her editorial, “Mr. George Maguire Is Too Grumpy.” And once when we had taken the children to the Outer Banks for a vacation, Bill found a beautiful Poem that Mary had written and then crumpled up and left in a dresser drawer, entitled “The Merry-Go-Round of Life.” It was just beautiful, and impossible to believe it had been written by a twelve-year-old girl, which Mary was at the time. Bill folded it up and put it in his billfold, he has carried it around ever since. Sometimes he will take it out and read it aloud to somebody, if the occasion arises, which just embarrasses Mary to death. You know how teenagers are! So, I harbor some hopes that my Mary will be a writer, but you may rest assured that we will be proud of her whatever she does.
And as for Ruthie, it is becoming clear that she might do just about anything. Bill has always said, “Ruthie is a firecracker!” This fall she was a J.V. Football Cheerleader, you ought to see her turning cartwheels out across the field. Now she is practicing for the Miss Elementary School Pageant, she is driving us all crazy by singing “I Enjoy Being a Girl” over and over, which will be her Talent. Since Mary and Joe were going to Myrtle Beach with the youth group from church last summer, I felt I should go as one of the chaperones, which I did, and it was a lot of fun but No Vacation, I have to say.
Merry Christmas from all
the Picketts,
Mary, Joe, Ruthie, Birdie
and Bill
P.S. Here is Mary’s prize-winning recipe for Carrot Cake. Be sure to wear a hairnet (ha ha).
2 cups sifted flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1½ teas. baking soda
2 teas. cinnamon
1½ teas. salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup salad oil
4 eggs
2 cups finely grated carrots
1 8½ oz. can flaked coconut
½ c. chopped nuts
Preheat oven to 350°. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add sugar, oil, and eggs; beat well. Add carrots, nuts, and coconut; blend thoroughly. Pour into 3 9-inch round layer-cake pans that have been greased and floured. Bake in moderate oven 35 to 40 minutes. Remove from oven, cool a few minutes in pans. Turn out on wire racks and cool thoroughly. Fill layers, and frost top and sides of cake with cream cheese frosting.
½ cup butter
1 8-oz. package cream cheese
1 teas. vanilla
1 Ib. confectioner’s sugar
Combine butter, cream cheese, and vanilla; cream well. Beat sugar in, adding milk if necessary.
Dec. 24, 1966
Dearest Family,
I apologize for these carbon copies, I hope you can read them. Too bad Mary and Joe are all grown up now and can’t copy this letter out for me, as they did in their Small Review, so long ago. But I am in a hurry, and we have a lot of news.
Our lovely Mary is now Mrs. Sandy Copeland, having Eloped in a romantic trip to South Carolina in the dead of night. Sandy is a carpenter and such a nice young man, we love him like a son already. Sandy and Mary met in the drugstore in Farmville, Virginia, where Mary was enrolled at Longwood College prior to her marriage. Naturally we were disappointed when she dropped out of school, but as Mary says, “Mom, I can finish school anytime.” Of course this is true. Bill and I are not too old to remember those early Days of Romance ourselves. After a very brief wedding trip (apparently it is easier to get married in South Carolina), they are living in Petersburg, Virginia, where Sandy works. Mary is not crazy about Petersburg, but she says she will be happy anywhere as long as she is with Sandy.
The other big news is, Joe is now in the Army serving Uncle Sam. We all went through much soul-searching before he left, I have to say. I will not even go into the endless discussions that took place night after night around our kitchen table after dinner, with Joe voicing all his objections to War in general and this War in particular, and Bill trying to tell him what is Right, and urging him not to make a decision that would ruin his life forever. This long discussion was cut short when Joe was drafted, and in the twinkling of an eye, he was gone. Now he is in Bien Hoa. I have worried and worried over it myself, and wish that the Lord would provide us with easier answers. Bill has put a big map of southeast Asia on the wall so he can see where Joe is at all times.
Speaking of Bill, his Health is still not too good though he continues to go down to the store every day without fail, I don’t know what he would do with himself if this was not the case. He will be having some more tests at the University Hospital in early January, maybe they can find out what is wrong. As Bill says, his get-up-and-go has got up and went!
Speaking of get-up-and-go, Ruthie says she is going to major in Business when she goes to college, now who would ever have thought it? She was our light-hearted child. I will never forget that comedy routine she did at the March of Dimes benefit, dressed as a Bum.
In closing, I ask you to remember both Joe and Bill in your prayers, and ask God to bless our Country, and our boys in uniform.
Christmas Blessings from
Birdie and Bill
P.S. We are going to be grandparents! I can’t wait! I believe I am just as excited as Mary and Sandy are.
P.P.S. And even a sick man can’t resist:
1 12-oz. package chocolate chips
4 c. miniature marshmallows
1 c. peanut butter
Melt peanut butter and chocolate chips over low heat until smooth. Gradually stir in marshmallows. Pour into 9-inch square pan and chill until firm. Cut into squares.
Dec. 18, 1967
To my dear Family,
I want to begin this Christmas letter by remembering Bill. You know that he died In Peace on August 10, at home, with me beside him, as I have been through Life. I woke up at the crack of dawn that morning, it was a Tuesday, filled with the strangest sense of deep peace yet a terrible urgency at the same time, and went immediately to his side.
I had been sleeping for months on a little rollaway cot right next to Bill’s hospital bed which we had put in the living room so everybody could visit him, you know how much he always loved company. Somehow I was not surprised to find Bill wide awake too, though he had been sleeping around the clock for several days.
“Hi there, Birdie honey,” he said, and I said, “Hi.” It was scarcely light, but I could see him well, his brown eyes as bright and lively as when we first met, all those years ago. He grinned at me like the young man he was back then, a touch of the devil in him, and so I kissed his lips, and squeezed his hand, and sat there with him all day long while he slept as peaceful as a child until the late afternoon when he stirred a bit and then was gone, along with a little breeze that blew through the house just then like an angel passing.
At first I did not see how I could go on alone, but we have to, don’t we? We have to do what we have to do, and God will give us the Strength for it, as I have learned, bless His sweet name. And speaking of God, there is one more thing I want to say here and now, since many of you know how mad I used to get at Bill for not going to church. It is this. If there is a heaven, and I believe with all my heart that there is, then my Bill is right there, right now, even though I know he would rather be in the dime store. And I know I will be joining him by and by.
In the meantime, James Grady has taken over the dime store for me. Most of you know James who has worked for Bill since he was a high school boy, he has a Sterling Character. Though I had planned to retire from Birdie’s Lunch, nobody will have it, and so I have bowed to Popular Opinion and stayed on. James is putting in some booths, they will be real nice. It will look more like a real restaurant. Also I have a more modern menu now, including taco salads which are a big hit.
I have saved the best part for last.
I am so happy to announce the Birth of my adorable grandson Andrew Bird Copeland, born June 10 in Rex Hospital, Raleigh, N.C., 7 lb. 8 oz. He came into this world with a full head of black hair to everyone’s amazement, you know Mary is so fair. But then the black hair fell out and Mary says it is coming back in blond now, and she further reports that the baby looks more and more like his daddy every day.
Little Andrew is Just Perfect in my opinion, of course I am not prejudiced at all!
And I’m just so glad he had a chance to meet Bill.
Joe got to come home for Bill’s funeral, he has lost 20 pounds and looks very handsome in his uniform, but he was all upset about his daddy of course, and about what is going on over there as well, though he did not want to talk about it. I guess Joe is just not cut out for war, and often I wonder if we made the right decision in urging him to go.
Bill thought it would make a man of him, but I don’t know. I don’t know what to think about it. I pray for Joe daily, as for all our boys in this awful and confusing War, and ask you to do the same.
I guess that’s about all, except I should add that Mrs. Pickett—still going strong at 100—got a birthday card from Lyndon Johnson.
May God bless each and every one of you this Christmas Season,
Birdie