It’s been a busy week here, Under the Oakes on Ye Olde Block Farm. So I’ll be back next week with more nonsense and shenanigans. In the meantime, Susie is here to guide you through some SETX life in 1931.
Susie Spindletop’s Weekly Letter Snipetts 1931
Right at the start I want to express my appreciation for your being present at the opening of the fair. Your husband wasn’t much to look at but he counted as one and that’s something.
Your children were very attractive at the beginning but with lolly pops, taffy candy and the results of a bad cold all mixed in one they would hardly have added anything to the art exhibition an hour later. Be that as it may, you started right by coming early so you can decide on where to spend your time looking things over during the remaining days of the fair. I’ve heard that the old bachelors will be quartered in what was formerly the livestock pens.
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Della: I’ve got a camel’s hair coat.
Della’s husband: Where’d you kill the camel?
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Good thing Thanksgiving is coming soon for the yallerlegged chickens have disappeared from this section. The Methodists have been here a few days in conference about what I was not informed.
And as usual, I had to make a break. Our former resident Dr. Mills, was here, and I congratulated him on becoming a circuit rider.
“Excuse me, sister,” said he, “I’m presiding elder.”
“Pardon me, elder,” said I,”I didn’t know you were that old.”
He hasn’t seen me since because I always see him first.
November 8, 1931
Just because I’m fondly anticipating the day when I will be 21, the stork left his perch with the first blast of winter and made me wrong again.
Last week, I told you Mr. and Mrs. Joe Broussard had 21 grandchildren. I’ll admit that I was a little careless in not counting them myself, but some women forget to even powder their nose.
Honestly, I have never done anything to excite the enmity of Ruth and I.D. Polk, but they are responsible for my predicament. A son was born to them October 29, making a grand total of 22. That’s where I get out. I said total of 21 and not grand total, which, of course, would be 22
November 1, 1931
Believe it or not, Della, but I helped to organize the Col. George Moffett chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, here 25 years ago. Or rather, I was present when it happened.
About all I can remember about it is that it happened at the home of Mrs. Rush Norvell, located where the Woodhead place now is. The chapter’ll be celebrating its silver jubilee this week at Mrs. Norvell’s. I do remember something was the matter with Mrs. Norvell’s fireplace, so the meeting was held in the dining room. The Manse at Staunton, Virginia, where Woodrow Wilson lived in the museum known as the little White House. Here is a sideboard that belonged to Col. George Moffett. “Tis a replica of the one at Mount Vernon.”
* * *
In trouble again. Mr. E.D. Leach writes from Ceres, New York, to say, “You are all wrong, LaSalle’s bones are reposing in Forest Lawn Memorial Park. That can be easily established. Why would anybody want to be found dead at the Country club? That isn’t what it’s for?”
I don’t like to get into an argument but when I had the explorer buried at the Country club don’t feel like digging up his bones and interring them somewhere else.
I’m now notifying Mr. Leach that La Salle was never in New York. He has in mind Peter Stuyvesant, the fella who bought Manhattan Island for $25
October 4, 1931
Della:
I’m convinced that Joe Lederer is a hayseed pure and simple. Last year he was in Chicago, went out to the stock yards when they were feeding the cattle, and immediately took to his bed with hay fever.
This season, he remained in Beaumont but somehow got a waft of new mown hay and immediately began to sneeze. Joe says hay fever is nothing to sneeze at but he just can’t help it.
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Then I know a milliner who says the handling of feathers gives her the hay fever. It seems to me that this would be feather fever.
* * *
That may be the reason the judge pined so much when he saw Maude Miller raking the new mown hay. He had hay fever and didn’t know it. It might have been!
September 27, 1931
Dear Della:
Now, I’m in trouble over a little mesquite steer which caused my friend, Mr. Patterson of Junction, the creator of mesquite animals, to get into a trinity of trouble. He, armed with a trusty Colts, the dog armed with a vicious growl and the steer armed with vicious horns clashed in the stillness of that delightfull west Texas atmosphere. Now I feel I can realize the cautious creep of a man who thinks his home has been invaded, is still being invaded, and powder liable to be burned at any time. But let him tell the story.
My Dear Susie:
I am returning you, under separate cover, the mesquite steer with the wide, white horns, which you so kindly presented to me some weeks ago, and which rested with my choicer curios beside a rosewood musicbox. I thank you for it most sincerely, my friend.
It would today still be in its place, save for an incident fraught with terror for me and mine. Say what you want, my friend, the black details of this incident shall remain with us, to haunt us through the night, for many a month. I hasten first, however, to say that you were innocent of any thought that the facts I am about to transcribe here would occur. How could you possibly know… So, of course, I hold you blameless, but nevertheless these things did occur.
My wife and I, she upon the divan and I in my great grandfather’s comfy chair, had been listening to late night offerings on the radio. The music was soft charming. The living room was darkened save for a low brass lamp reminiscent of our old homes in the kerosene days. Outside, in the utter darkness of the avenue, a cricket chirped, not unpleasingly, in the damp depths of the old ligustrum. The last not of a song faded and the light was switched off.
The first peculiar thing I noticed was a strange sharp bark, and a low trouble growl from my little dog, followed by a terrifying yelp, and then, strangest to us of all, a complete stillness on her part. Our room, you know lies removed by the den, hallway, and the dining room from the living room… I had been thinking of Jacob’s supernatural story of , “The Monkey’s Paw,” a terrifying tale. Suddenly without a wisp of warning, came the sound of a furious commotion from the living room. I set down the fact, unabashed, that I was frozen paralyzed. I make no attempt to fictionize these facts. More after the fashion of a steel robot than a man my hand found my Colts and, guided. I think now, more by instinct, than by my own faculties, I made my way—I hardly know how—to the front of the house. Or, rather, I got part way. In a strange, sort of orange, red light, I saw the little mesquite animal grown to enormous size. The red nostrils were aflame with wrath. The horns were lowered, though they rose above the tops of my chairs…And then, and, then he came at me…and I felt something grasp me tightly…Then in a shudder I saw it all. The rest of the night I refrained from sleeping on my back.
Foolish am I , perhaps, but a thing like this is deep seated, and I ask you kindly to take back your steer. J.P.W.
* * *
I can appreciate his feelings for once upon a time I had an alley cat take possession of the house, the roof,the yard and all streets, and alleys leading thereto. But I had to fire a scream instead of a bullet from a trusted revolver.
* * *
Now I think just for that I’ll give Mr. Patterson another job. The city zoo has adopted two lion cubs or the cubs have adopted the city, only time will tell. Anyway I’m sending him a picture of them and see if there’re any mesquite branches that look like them, after the said mesquite branch has passed through his artistic fingers.
* * *
The trouble is he may make a lion so realistic that it will roar in the early morning hours and the trusty Colts revolver will be brought into play.
* * *
And I have another job for him which cannot be executed until I take a long vacation. I will send him a picture of your husband for reproduction and let some one say that he got the inspiration from Noah’s Ark. Must arrange it so things will blow over somewhat I return.
September 20, 1931
Della, you often hear people say they have gotten to the end of the road. Well that’s m Good-bye
Susie
September 13, 1931
A Brief History of Florence Stratton Part 1:
A Brief History of Florence Stratton Part 2:
Maud Muller:
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