Fri, Oct 31, 1941: Hallowe’en

"Yesterday the little room had their Hallowe'en party at school.  Stanley wore that old basketball suit of Daddy's and his old football helmet with a cross-eyed mask.  He got the prize for being funniest but after school he heard he just got third so he doesn't know which place he really got."

-- Letter from my grandmother to my father, Friday, October 31, 1941.

Wed, Oct 22, 1941: passed away

"Dear DeVere: Am sending some clothes & a clock.  Hope you are fine.  Aunt Stella called to say Grandma Brown passed away yesterday.  Her funeral will be at Columbus tomorrow....Barbara is going to a freshman skating party to-night if it doesn't rain too much.  When will we be seeing you?

"Love Mother"

-- Letter from my grandmother to my father, Wednesday, October 22, 1941.  My great-grandfather had died in 1936.  His second wife, with whom he had no children, had died on October 21, 1941. I am descended from his first wife, who died in 1896, when the youngest of her eight surviving children was 9 months old and her oldest child, Aunt Stella, was 17.  Aunt Stella took on a great role in helping her father raise her seven younger siblings, and she did not marry until she was 41.

Oct 19?, 1941: calves

"Dear DeVere: We received your letter the same day I sent yours.  Was surely glad to hear from you.  Am sending some papers thought you might like to glance over.  Daddy & I went to Wichita yesterday, took some calves, ate dinner at Aunt Ethels."

-- Postcard from my grandmother to my father, around October 19, 1941.  The stockyards were located in Wichita, which is presumably where they were taking the calves.

Thu, Oct 16, 1941: grade card

“Dear Devere

“I got my grade card  I got 99 in spelling. got B in writing, and in arithmetic 92, and in English A, and in Reading A, and in Social Studies A.  On Monday night Miley had a new calf.  That makes the six calves.  I was gathering walnuts this evening...."

-- Letter from my uncle, Stanley Reeves Brown, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Winfield, Kans., Thursday, October 16, 1941.  Stanley was 8 years old; my father was 16.

Tue, Oct 7, 1941: taken possession

"Saturday we finished papering your room and got it straightened up.  Looks real nice so Stanley calls it his room now, sort of taken possession with you gone."

-- Letter from my grandmother, age 44, to my father, age 16, Tuesday, October 7, 1941. Stanley was my father's 8-year-old brother.

Wed, Oct 1, 1941: your laundry

"Dear DeVere:- Am mailing your laundry to you this morning.  I got home from Winfield O.K. and Daddy was here so we papered the ceiling in your room upstairs....Did your extra bed clothes feel pretty good?  We have to take Stanley's roosters to Augusta to-day.  Hope you are O.K.  With Love Mother."

--Postcard from my grandmother, Jessie Maybelle (Berger) Brown, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Sidney DeVere Brown, Southwestern College, Winfield, Kans., Wednesday, October 1, 1941.
      My grandmother wrote my father this letter, just as he was starting his freshman year at Southwestern College, a Methodist school 30 miles south of my grandparents' farm.  She apparently had driven down to the college to drop off my father (16 years old at the time), while my grandfather stayed at the farm.  Note that he mailed home his dirty laundry and she washed it and mailed it back to him.