[A letter from Dora Pomeroy to her son Karl. He was probably on his mission at that time. Transcribed by Dayna Jacobs in Oct. 2009 from the original. Paragraphs added.]
look for a box this week
Mesa, Aug. 12-20
My Dear Son Karl,
I don’t believe I could put in my time better advantage than by talking to you for awhile today.
Papa & Roland, Hon Stewart and his boys are all in the hills on a hike, and on the side, to tack up campaign cards & posters.
We girls & Ivan had ice cream & watermelon for dinner, and I tried to eat a portion for you and Adah ate the third dish for Elder Parkinson. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
I must tell you of the exciting times and happenings on last Friday the thirteenth.
First of all Ivan announced at the breakfast table that he had just discovered grey hairs in his head. Then about 8 oclock word came from Phoenix that the “Mitchell” was about repaired and would cost $22, (Ivan had the misfortune to break the clutch at Riverside, the night before) Perhaps that’s the whyfores of the grey hair. About noon Margery extracted her first tooth. A little later I discovered Dorothy had her mud pie in the parlor.
Adah was making a beautiful white organdie dress for Gertrude Riggs, and incidentally trying to coax me to go with her to the show. Where all at once a junior cyclone arrived, and I flew to nail down the canvas of the sleeping porch, where all at once Thelma shrieked out “Adah, Gladys, Mrs. Pomeroy, come quick, our sleeping quarters are leaving” so Adah threw her work up on a chair in the corner, in Papas room, and we all ran to the rescue. We girls held the tent poles, and Mr. H. got beds & bedding into their house, and by that time the tent was in a number of sections, and to our horror we found the back door of our house had blown open and the fine dress had sailed out the window into the ditch & it half full of muddy water. Adah would have wept, only it was so funny that we all laughed our heads about off. Then she got busy and laundered it, and you couldn’t tell it from the new goods. (So much for her good ironing.)
Papa and the Stewarts had left about 10 oclock for Cove Creek & when past Scottsdale they met such a fierce rain that they turned around and came home, not wishing to get bogged in Paradise Valley. When out by the experiment farm the car went dead on them, and a Spanish boy pulled them in.
We never did get to go to the show, and spent all the next day cleaning dust from the house. Vaughn now sleeps on the ice box and Thelma on the mantelpiece (so she said).
Some day, can you beat it?
Oh yes, I forgot, Don Bierry and Melza were married that afternoon and went to Cal. On their honeymoon. Thelma has Shaners Victrola there while the owners are in the mountains, and whenever I sit down to write she always puts on The “Fishers Hornpipe” or the “Irish jig” so I will write a cheerful letter she says.
Karl darling I wonder if you would like to hear me say “I love you” and theres never a minute I am not proud of you, and glad you are where you are.
Write soon, lots of love, From Mama, (Need anything?
On Granny's Trail 