April 3 and 8, 1944: A couple of letters from home. Easter preparations are under way in Albany and the search for new tenant for the upstairs apartment is on. Spring has surely some to town as Eddie is getting out fishing again. In war related news, a cousin has received a Purple Heart and Eddie went for his Army physical.
Apparently there is a high demand for apartments in Albany as “Last week…daddy hung out the FOR RENT sign and boy you should have seen the parade that was coming to our house and they all wanted to go upstairs and see the room…” After having one potential tenant back out, they settled on renting to a couple with grown children “a boy 17 and a girl 20”. When they came to see the apartment the wife came in first then went back out to bring her husband in. As Anna tells it, “The wife asked her husband if he liked the place and she told him to express an opinion but he said that if she liked it, it would be Okay with him…” Anna writes that the new tenants are “very friendly and full of fun… They were asking about having a victory garden and we told them that they could have one in the back yard if they wanted to.”
Anna mentions getting a postcard from Stanley with a picture of the British Parliament House. She writes that “Daddy said the English were smart when they built the Parliament House on the river so that if they had any disputes all they had to do was open the window and throw the trouble maker into the river.”
With the weather getting warmer Eddie is back to going fishing regularly. On Saturday he caught “several bull heads and we took three of them…to his father.” They put some of the fish in a pan of water to keep them alive and baby Terry would “reach into the pan of water…so that she could see how they were swimming around. …She would laugh when they splashed.”
Unless a deferment comes through, there is a chance that Eddie will be drafted. “Eddie took his physical examination for the Army and they passed him and put him in Army Limited Service only on account of his glasses. However so far we have not heard from the draft board and Eddie’s boss Mr. Martin sure is putting up a big fight for him because he knows what the loss of Eddie will mean for the company. I guess Eddie has a fair chance of getting deferred… There was a list of names in the paper from Board 341 and Eddie’s name was not on it yet.”
In other news:
- “Our cousin Eddie Murawski got a Purple Heart and he sent it home to his parents but we didn’t see it yet. His hand has been taken out of the cast and they are expecting him home soon…”
- Anna saw Regina Rajczewska (married name Wilk). “She looked sick in her face and she walked so slowly…I think she is going to have a papoose unless she is sick with something else.”
- With Easter on the way, they had the parish priest come to the house to bless their Easter dinner.
In terms of other Easter preparations, Anna mentions that they will not be buying a basket for the baby since “she is still too small and she would get sick from the candy and I don’t want to eat everything myself… This year the stores are bare compared to the Easter baskets and candy of other years. They have cardboard baskets instead of the woven ones…”
Anna closes with the thought that “…I and all of us here are wishing you boys a Happy Easter… So long. Good Luck and God Bess You.”