FAMILY UPDDATE, 1935

Mooooo!

This year's Christmas advent story, which has yet to be written, will be set in 1935 and as usual will follow my Grandmother,Ina Dobson's imaginary activities as she prepares for Christmas at the farmhouse. I thought this newsy letter written by Ina to her sister Mabel would set the stage nicely. It's dated October 31, 1935, 

Ina relates that they had a frost mid-August, and I can attest that such early frosts used to happen. You couldn't count on a dependable growing season in the Idaho upper country. Ina continues: "We have about 4 inches of snow and this A.M. the thermometer was only 10 degrees above, at Bertha's [on the hill just east of our farm yard] it was 6 degrees above, and farther up the ridge it was down to zero."

"They started threshing the beans on the rented land last Monday noon, and by 3:00 p.m. it was raining which turned to snow by Friday A.M. They got 24 grain sacks thrashed on June's part and had to quit. The rest are in piles and may yet be sewed. The flax was a poor yield due chiefly to an untoward season. It has been shipped but returns not in yet.

"We feel pretty poor this fall but still must not complain for we have food and shelter and a reasonable supply of clothes. We got a fat hog of a neighbor and have a two-year-old steer to beef. We have one fresh cow and one we milk a little. She furnishes us with butter, and I also can spare Bertha a little milk. Their cows are just about all dry, though they look for a fresh one soon."

Now Ina provides an update on her family:

Myrtle, Bernice, Jack, Ina, Earle, Shirley, and Vance

Daughter Pearl and Al farming near Stetson, Alberta: "I don't know whether Pearl and Al will pull up stakes or not. They are very discouraged. Their crops got frosted and their wheat will only sell as feed. Most of it in Alberta is like that. Their garden got badly bitten the middle of August when we had a frost here." 

Vance, Grandpa Jack, Earle

Daughter Myrtle: ". . . expects to go back to Portland before long. The work is opening up now."



Son Earle and Bernice: . . . "had a hard time getting living quarters, which are scarce in Idaho Falls." [Earle was a math and industrial arts teacher in Idaho Falls for 30 years.] "They moved into a place and soon a family of seven moved in overhead and nearly drove them wild with noise. They moved into a lovely old house then with beautiful flowers around it, but it also had been turned into an apartment house and soon a family moved in above. There were seven or eight of them, so they felt they couldn't go with that either, and at last a fellow teacher took them in by making the upper floor of his house over into living quarters for them."

Myrtle, Vance (my dad), and Ethel, 1937

Daughter Ethel and Ernest: ". . .  have moved into an apartment in Duluth and is nearer to church and school both and plans on taking up choir work again. Shirley Jean is thriving and Ernest on the go most of the time."

In reality Vance wasn't a hunter.

Son Vance: ". . . has had an awful season. Measles in the spring among his pupils and all the strikes among mill workers, etc., all this cut into his work, but now times are picking up for him again."

Daughter Shirley: . . . "has prospects of a job in a doctor's office, but the present girl is not leaving for a few weeks, so please don't mention this in your letter, any of you. She doesn't want it speculated on up here till it is a certainty. Just after this job came seeking her, another was offered her in Idaho Falls. Just think of it -- two jobs, when she's prayed for work so long." KW