About June 24, 1946: Southerners

“Well, howdy you all!

“I’m not that bad yet, but it takes will power to keep from pickin’ up that stuff, and I about lost the urge to resist, when, tonight, for about the third time, I was classed as a Luthehuah.  The first day we were here, a woman asked if we were from the South, and we admitted it was South of here – A Wisconsin boy & some girl asked me if Kansas wasn’t below the Mason-Dixon line – a Texas girl that that we were about the same as Tennessee, in geog and another Texas girl said I’d pass for a Texan from my talk. This South business is being a liberal education to me….

“Southerners.  I’ve met 2 from Georgia, 3 Miss, 2 Kentucky, 2 Tennessee, too many Texas, 3 Arkansas, 1 Florida, so I’ve learned a lot about them.  We have a lot of good clean fun about our accents, it’s as good a topic of conversation as the weather.

--Letter from my mother, Ruth Esther Murray, Sioux City, Iowa, to her family, Hutchinson, Kans., around Monday, June 24, 1946. She was part of a Methodist Youth Caravan that summer and the letter was written sometime between June 16 and 24.  This is the first letter I have written by my mother.  It was written about three months before my parents met.  The Caravan training lasted June 18-28, 1946, in Sioux City, Iowa.