Wednesday Night.
Nov. 5, 1931*

Dearest Sweetheart:

No letter today, but I’m sure you are busy with your manuscript.

Walter White is sleeping soundly. He has gotten so he takes only one nap a day and that is usually just before noon. He surely leads us a merry chase the rest of the day. Unless we latch the louvers (and the screen latches are useless unless they are too high for him to reach) he will hardly stay in the house. The fresh air and sunshine are fine for him and we are glad he likes the great outdoors. It would be more convenient, however, if he were satisfied with Mama’s & Papa’s yard as a playground. He insists on “goin’ wawkin” at all hours and it is impossible to exhaust him. I am doing more walking now than I have done in many a day. It is good for both of us though. He has to be watched every minute that he is in the yard here because there is no fence and he is so quick that he can be away in a minute. Don’t worry though. One of us is on the job all the time. That nice, high solid board fence and gate at Charleston will be fine. I think he would enjoy a sand pile in a good sunny place there now. The beach would would be lovely. There is some red sand in the yard here and he enjoys throwing handfuls of it above his head. Sometimes you have a red handed son. Before the weather turned cool he had something on one shoulder that we thought was heat. It itched when he was too warm and it gradually spread to the other shoulder, his neck and finally his face. The cool weather did not seem to help it. After he had had it for over two weeks I asked Dr. Knox to look at it. He said it was nettle rash or – how do you spell “Erticaria”? [urticaria, aka hives]. I suggested that we probably had been giving him too much acid food – lots of orange juice and apple sauce. He agreed that it was caused by that and advised us to eliminate the apple sauce. He also prescribed some medicine which we purchased and gave him – a liquid and some powders. It seemed like a joke to give W.W. medicine. He felt good (but he looked terrible), it seemed, except that the itching troubled him. We bathed the places with soda water and that helped greatly. His face was swollen some when Claudelle came but by the time she was ready to leave he looked well enough for her to take some pictures of him. The rash has disappeared now and he is feeling fine. It upsets me for even the least thing to get wrong with Walter White when you are away. He is so sweet and so valuable to us.

November 5, 1931

Marguerite is getting on well as could be expected they say. Her trouble was a ruptured ovary. They removed it. They said her abdomen was so full of blood that they dipped it out by the handful. The doctors seemed to know their business and there were two graduate nurses present. They expect to give Marguerite a blood transfusion tonight. If Bob’s blood types I imagine he will be the one to furnish it. He said he had killed lots of deer but he never saw one lose as much blood as Marguerite did.

It is good to think that we are really going to see you soon. You are going to find your son about the most interesting thing you have ever seen. I love to play with him and see how quickly he learns and develops. He is much less babyish and much more boyish than when you saw him. The family can hardly talk of his leaving. They are going to miss him dreadfully. The neighbors will miss him too. Mrs. Cain said she didn’t know what she was going to do after he left. Bertie said she was going to leave home the day he did because she couldn’t stand to tell him goodbye. She told her mother that if she could have a son like Walter White she wouldn’t mind having one before she married. She is to be married in a few months I think. She said she wanted a dozen children. She loves them so. After she has had one she will probably cut the number some as there isn’t a great deal of fun in bringing one into the world. They are more than worth it after they arrive though. I just wonder how we got along without ours as long as we did.

Lots & lots of love from all of us.

Always, your
Ina.

* November 5 was a Thursday; I’m guessing Ina got the date right and day wrong.