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Wishing You the Best and Happiest Christmas

Posted by on October 23, 2017

December 16, 1945. Stanley writes Dad from Albany, NY on a Sunday afternoon, where Old Man Winter has the home town in his grip.

Their brother-in-law, Eddie, left “bright and early” to go “ice fishing, of course”, while Stanley and his sister Anna went to church. He details the weather conditions. “This morning it started to snow gently. Prior to my going to church it got dark outside twice and the old wind started to howl and the snow just flew around…It was somewhat of a blizzard. …It sure was cold walking against the wind. When we came out of church the snow ceased and the wind quieted down.” He also writes that the night before when he was working at the train station “it got cold all of a sudden that the steam from the trains before it hit the ground came down in crystal form.” It has been so cold lately that, “…the river was frozen over for the last couple of days. Yesterday they had an ice cutter up and down the river breaking up the river ice.”

As far as the girls, there not much news about Judy other than that “she is learning to sit up,” and that “she was sitting up in the carriage this afternoon.”  Little Terry, on the other hand continues to amuse. Having been given her own little snow shovel, “she was in the yard shoveling snow. Then one of the mittens fell off and she tried to put it on and the other one came off. She would pick it up and hold it with her two fingers and tried to brush off the snow and anything she would swat the glove to get the snow off would fly out of her hand. Boy did she have a hard time. She had more snow in the glove and up her sleeve. So I went downstairs and told her to come to me so I would put the mittens on. She told me she almost froze to death outside. It took me almost ten minutes to brush all the snow from her clothes get her clothes off and bring her into the house. Her hands were all red from the cold and snow.”

Stanley goes on to give Dad what amounts to a regional sick report on where the flu is striking locally. “Albany has so far escaped what you may call the flu stage. Schenectady and several surrounding cities are having a flu spell. In some towns they closed schools on account of the flu. …I sure hope this blasted winter gets over with faster.  Of course, winter is a beautiful season when it is full of snow but is a cause of many sicknesses. Well next month is Jan, then Feb and March and spring will be rolling around soon.”

Before wrapping up he gets to some army business. “I see where you were reclassified to a 502. That was the same classification I had. With reference to the T/Sgt. ratings, they pulled the same thing in our outfit. If they knew somebody who had a little pull and like the person who brownnosed a bit usually got the rating… Our group adjutant turned a lot of the ratings down but when his Major‘s ranking came through he did not turn that down. They could have given a lot of the fellows ratings…many fellows who were hard workers and deserved a rating never did ever get it.”

He goes on to close, “I guess I’ll close this letter as I am running short of information. …If per chance you don’t start on your journey home this month here’s wishing you the best and happiest Christmas under the present circumstances.”

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