Tag Archives: vacation

July 10, 1939 (from Ina and Walter White)

200 W. Mesquite
Uvalde, Texas
July 10, 1939

Dearest Sweetheart:

We were so glad to have your letter from Denison and your telegram from Minneapolis today. It seemed like old times for you to be thoughtful about writing and wiring us. You have been on our minds a great deal since you left Saturday. We were afraid that bus ride would be awfully hot. Do you know that the temperature here that day was 112ยบ – the hottest in 20 years? It was the same again yesterday, but I think it was a little cooler today. At least we have had a breeze.

July 10, 1939 (from Ina)

July 10, 1939 (from Ina)

Walter White and Lewis Dunbar have been behaving nicely. Walter White has seemed so much more grown-up since he went to Reagan Wells with you. He hasn’t cried a time since then.

Honey, I’m not giving orders, but may I remind you of three things – the laundry, the due bills, and the letter from the Olson Rug Co.? Please have Mr. King B mail us clothing belonging to Reitha, the boys, and me. Your insurance, the gas, milk, rent, and perhaps other bills are due. You remember I told you about complaining to the Olson Rug Co. about the way the rug in our room behaves. If you will forward their reply to me, I shall appreciate it.

We hope you are not snowed under with work since your brief vacation. Don’t forget the sunshine and walks to the lake.

We love you lots and lots.

Always, your
Ina.

220 W. Mesquite
Uvalde, Tex.
July 10, 1939

Dear Daddy,

We went to Ina Marie’s today. We had a nice time only Ina (Ina Marie) couldn’t come back with us.

Tonight Lewis is going to sleep on the studio couch for the first time this summer.

See if you can manage to get a few days off to go to Mother Dove’s (which I doubt).

We went to Garner park yesterday to go swimming (which I didn’t).

Your Son,
Walter W. Dove

July 10, 1939 (from Walter White)

July 10, 1939 (from Walter White)

September 22, 1925 (Ina)

Tuesday Night.
Sept. 22, 1925.

My dearest Walter:

Your “just before fishing” letter came today and I enjoyed it lots even though it did happen to be a short one. I am sure you and Dr. K.S. enjoyed your fishing trip. I think it is good for you to go off and leave your owrk for an outing like that once in a while. It doesn’t pay to stick too closely to work all the time, even though we sometimes feel we shouldn’t leave it, because we often save a great deal of time by forgetting it for a while in a trip out in the country and then returning with renewed energy and refreshed mind to take it up again with greater ability than we would have had if we had plodded along almost to the extent of nervous prostration. In the office I have often worked and puzzled and figured for hours and hours on one particular phase of the work, finally striking a “stump” that seemed so difficult while I was in that exhausted state of mind that I felt it would be impossible to solve it. However, if I would take a walk to the post office or even take up a new line of work that was not so difficult, I could soon return to the original problem and solve it almost immediately. It is the same way with sewing or anything. There is no doubt but that recreation is a time saver when not indulged in to excess, and I certainly know you don’t do that, Dear.

September 22, 1925 (Ina)

September 22, 1925 (Ina)

I was interested in what you said about Dr. White’s letter and our engagement. Since you mentioned it I believe Mr. Webb was the one who was here with Dr. Hunter. Mrs. Parman told me his name in a conversation we had over the ‘phone after they left, and, as well as I remember, that was the name. She told me that she had told Dr. Hunter of our engagement, and that he had said you were a “fine fellow.” No doubt Mr. Webb was present when she told him.

Sweetheart, would it shock you so terribly much if I were to tell you right here and now that I loved you? Prepare for it, ’cause I do love you. You have first place in the heart of

Your own loving
Ina.

September 22, 1924

Monday P.M.
Sept. 22, 1924

Dear Walter:

Thelma, Bob and the children have just left, so I want to have a few minutes conversation with you. I wish it could be several hours real conversation instead of one with pen and ink.

Your account of the fishing trip was interesting, and I know you had a good time. Yes, I would have enjoyed it the best in the world, and I appreciate your thinking of me. That makes me feel good even though I couldn’t be there. I know I’d just love to be down in Florida, and would be a mighty happy girl if I loved you. Guess I’ll know some day whether I do or don’t. There isn’t a doubt in my mind about your being good and kind and considerate because I feel sure that such is your disposition. If I find that I do love you, I feel perfectly sure that you can make me happy, and I will try my very best to make you just as happy. I appreciate your love more than I can tell you, and I hope I shall never be guilty of doing anything that would show lack of appreciation.

September 22, 1924

September 22, 1924

We had an inch of rain last night. Can you imagine such a thing? It has been terribly hot for the past few days, but has been so cool and pleasant today. Everyone seems to feel so much better. I hope you have had enough rain to make your work better.

No, up until a few days ago when Mr. Parman was here, he hadn’t heard a word from Mr. Bishopp, and had no idea about who was to take his place while he was on his vacation. He doesn’t know why Mr. Bishopp doesn’t write. However, he says now that he can’t get as long a vacation as he had hoped to get, so he and Mrs. Parman are going to leave here the last of this month, going by rail instead of in their car since he can be gone only two weeks. I am very much disappointed that it looks like you can’t come this time, but maybe it’s all for the best. I try to look at things that way, and I usually find sooner or later, that it all …

The remainder of the letter is missing. I just found the final leaf misfiled with the letters from July 1925. Here it is:

works out right after all. If we do our best and have faith I feel sure it will.

I am glad you liked the pictures, and I appreciate the nice things you, the nurse, and your landlady said about them. I don’t feel a bit badly that the landlady insisted that I was Irish. I am afraid though that I can’t boast of any Irish blood. As far as the temper is concerned, I must have “lost” most of mine when I was a baby, because I only have fragments of it left. I sometimes wish I had more. Some people seem to get so much satisfaction out of “flying off the handle,” that I believe it woiuld help my feelings a little sometimes if I could do it.

I am sorry your work didn’t come out just like you expected. I know you were disappointed, but you shouldn’t be discouraged, because you have spent a comparatively short time on that particular thing, while others have spent years without satisfactory results, so you really couldn’t expect to solve it all in two or three months. I feel that you will solve it sometime if they will let you continue working on it.

We are getting a little busier every day at the office. We have about six thousand tax receipts to write which are supposed to be finished by the first of October, so you can see that we will not have much idle time. You see, after the 1924 tax rolls are made, we have to write up each person’s receipt, now describing his property, and then, when he comes in to pay his taxes, all we will have to do will be to date and sign the receipt, and take the money. If we waited until tax-paying season, which begins October first, to write the receipts, it would be practically an impossibility to handle the crowd. It takes a long time, you know, to describe every tract of land in Uvalde County.

It is getting late and so I had better get some sleep.

Remember that I enjoy your letters lots & lots.

Sincerely,

Ina

September 7, 1924

Sunday P.M.
Sept. 7, 1924

Dear Walter:

We have just returned from church and I want to answer your much appreciated letter which came yesterday.

I was so glad you felt so much encouraged with your work. In your letter before the last one you seemed a bit discouraged, and I am glad Mr. Bishopp came along and made you feel better. I have an idea how you feel about it sometimes after you have worked hard on it, especially on something like you have now that has been worked on for so many years without much success. You feel like it’s a hopeless case at times, don’t you? I have tackled things in my work that looked awfully hopeless, and I know how discouraged a person can get. But isn’t it a “grand a glorious feelin'” when you do finally succeed?

September 7, 1924

September 7, 1924

I know you are going to succeed even though you were to have to leave this particular branch for a time. The part that you have already done has been done thoroughly, so I consider that you have been successful so far, and if you have the privilege of continuing, you will, I think, have the satisfaction and honor of solving the problem entirely. I think it will be nice for you to have a laboratory down there since you are so deeply interested in the work of that state, and like the country there so well. However, it would please me very much if they would think it necessary for you to be away from there for a month or more in order to take charge of Mr. Parman’s work in Uvalde while he is on his vacation. He expects to leave about the middle of October I think. Don’t you think a few weeks of good Texas fresh air and sunshine would help your feelings? Not that I think your health is failing, but really, Uvalde is a wonderful place to come for rest.

I am feeling fine now since my vacation. I feel so refreshed from the rest that I took that I really don’t mind work a bit. It has been nice and cool for the past few days, and that gives a person a little “pep” you know. I am going to need a surplus of it soon, too, because the rush season is coming on.

It was too bad that you couldn’t be present at your sister’s wedding, but I suppose she will write you all about it. I know your mother needed your letter the next day, because she would naturally be awfully lonely. However, the fact that her daughter is so happy and has married a fine young man will be a comfort to her. I sincerely hope they will be happy, and, since they are congenial and love each other, why shouldn’t they be?

I hope I will have a letter from you before long saying that you will work in Uvalde next month.

Sincerely,
Ina

August 20, 1924

Wednesday A.M.
Aug. 20, 1924

Dear Walter:

I wonder what you are doing this morning – hard at work though I suppose. It still seems a little strange to me to stay at home and let other folks do the work at the office but I am really enjoying it. Claudelle works there a great deal of the time, and there is another girl working there also a great deal of the time while I am away. They work until late at night every few nights. At first I insisted on going back and cutting my vacation short, but my employer would not listen to such a thing, so I expect to take the full month.

August 20, 1924

August 20, 1924

I had a new experience Monday. I had never been squirrel hunting before, so I set my alarm for four o’clock that morning and a friend of mine and I started up in the Frio Canyon to a ranch near Reagan Wells to kill squirrels. We stopped and cooked and ate our breakfast on the way, and arrived at the ranch just in time, we thought, to kill lots of squirrels. However, they certainly must have heard us coming, because they succeeded so well in hiding themselves that we couldn’t find a one. We became discouraged and decided to go across the Divide into the main Frio Canyon and stop by at the “shut-in” to spend a few minutes with some friends. We did so and saw two squirrels on the way but did not succeed in killing either of them. So our experiences with those little animals were very unsatisfactory. We passed the hotel at Reagan Wells, and everything looked very much deserted that morning. All the scenery around there brought back very vividly to my mind the pleasant Sunday I spent up there.

You will notice that I am enclosing the negatives you requested. At least I suppose they are the proper ones. You are very good at giving vivid descriptions. It is mighty nice of you to think enough of the pictures to want them enlarged. Mama and I appreciate your thinking of sending us one.

I am so anxious to know what that is that you spoke of in your letter that you were going to tell me the next time you saw me. I hope it will not be long before I find out what it is. Your last letter sounded more encouraging about your coming in September than usual. It made me feel good, and I sincerely hope you can do it.

Two of the young men with whom I have been going have left town leaving only two with whom I go regularly. I don’t mention my dates in writing to you much just simply because I am afraid you will think I am trying to impress you as being very “popular.” I am certainly not trying to do anything of the kind, and I sincerely hope you will understand that I am not. I just feel like I want to tell you the things that I do, and I can’t do that without mentioning a date occasionally. I will trust you not to get the wrong impression.

With the exception of three times last summer, I had never been on mixed bathing parties until this summer. Mama and Papa did not approve of them and neither did I. However, the weather became so hot and swimming so popular that Mama and Papa would take their daughters out for a swim. Since practically everybody in Uvalde went to the same place to swim of course it amounted to about the same thing as taking your swimming party along with you. They finally decided that there really wasn’t any harm in it after all, consequently I go on swimming parties often. Mama and Papa enjoy swimming now as much if not more than we do. We go to the picture show once or twice a week, so these two things are the principal amusements for the young people of Uvalde. Of course they have dances occasionally, but as I told you before, I don’t go to those.

I am anxious to know of any further developments in your work. That certainly must be a very peculiar malady, and extremely interesting. I know you enjoy working with Dr. Kirby-Smith, and I certainly think he uses excellent taste in choosing a companion with whom to work. I hope it will be so that you can continue the investigation and complete it with him, and I sincerely hope you all will receive the proper credit. When you have put your whole heart into a thing and have worked hard, you certainly do want to receive credit for what you have done. As I said before, I am awfully proud of the work that you have done.

Sincerely,
Ina