Prelude: Here is another letter written in 1935. It’s from “Bern” in Wellsville, NY to Miss Frances Fairfield. Both Bern and Fran are in Highschool. They are friends but Bern wants more. This letter was before some of the others that I’ve posted. It was written on November 4^th1935. I transcribed it with his spelling mistakes and all!

THE LETTER:

Dear Fran,

Just a line to answer your last letter and to ask how Clair is. Hope he is oke by now. Don’t worry kid, he’ll be okay soon.

Suppose you think I acted rather funny last evening when they were taking the blood tests.  It looked as if I were rather “yellow,” but on my word of honor, I wasn’t. You see, I hate the smell of a hospital and I sick every time I get a wiff of one.  I’d been oke if it hadn’t been for that dam smell. If I were oke I’d have given my blood in a minute, but the Miss told me to scram before I fainted. I never fainted in my life, but I came awful close last night.  I stayed because I was going to let her take a test of me in case the rest failed. I probably wouldn’t have done much good, but I could have tried.

Didn’t you think it swell of Ed Brown to offer his services and he didn’t even know Clair.  That was the best deed anyone ever pulled I think. Boy Scout or what have you.  Here is what he said, “I knew he was a friend of Fran’s and you guys were friends of her, so I offered.”  He didn’t even know that he was your brother.  He deserves a note of thanks Fran, I hope you get a chance to thank him.

I enjoyed seeing you again although it wasn’t exactly as I thought it would be. I thought we would laugh and joke and think about things we used to do, but things didn’t exactly turn out that way.  I’m sorry that it couldn’t have been that way and Clair was home to enjoy the joking, but things will turn out oke and if you get a chance to see him, tell him I said that he’d better stop trying to walk across that bridge that he fell from a long time ago.  He’ll know what I mean and I’ll bet he’ll laugh-if he can.  Wait and see. We’ll so long, hope you have time to answer some time.

As Ever,

“Bern”

COMMENTARY:

What an interesting letter, Fran’s brother ends up in the hospital and hurt enough to need blood donated. This is the first letter in my Fran series to ever mention she had a brother. It makes you wonder what happened to him.  I love the way Bern makes excuses for himself, to try to look better in front of Fran. He hates the smell of the hospital. Don’t we all! Anyway, this is a nice glimpse into 1935 and Bern uses all the fun language we recognize from those years. Swell, Yellow, Oke and “On my word of honor.” It’s so fun to read! What do you think?