Letter from Lew Cannell to Rachel Cooper
Posted by: Erik M-H in Cannell, Lewis Dilley, Cole, Rachel (» Cooper), Interbay, SalemSaturday, November 18
Dear Mamma,
What do you know about it! I finished my aquarium, and it holds water — better’n four gallons of it. Two fish have lived happily in it for two days. My success as a carpenter is beginning to peter out though. Betty got a big packing-case from Miller’s to make a chest out of. I undertook the job, and produced an animal that Betty is mildly inclined to deride. She doesn’t like the color that came out of the “Chinese red” can and she thinks the modernistic decorations I appliquéd (nailed) on look like asparagus. I’ll draw you a picture of it and see what you think.
Golly, but we were glad to get your letter. Go right ahead and write another like that now. Betty is still delivering greetings and asking the questions that you sent.
A special session of the legislature meets Monday to make liquor control laws, truck license laws, and to appropriate money for poor relief. I’m getting my civics classes primed to attend some of the debates. There is a possibility that the school can have a new building out of money loaned the state by the Federal government to speed up employment on public works. The prison and Cookoo College are, as usual, yammering for a lion’s share, but Mr. Dry has scurried around arousing interest in our necessity. Rufe is blowing his horn for us, and the blind Mr. Irvine had an editorial in his Oregon Journal. The kids and faculty are all drawing plans in their heads, and one is continually stumbling over architects in the reception room.
I’ve finally chosen a Christmas play, called “Columbine Madonna.” It’s a humdinger, except that it takes four boys and only one girl. The tentative cast is: Gerry, Columbine; Orval, Pierrot; Bob Mealy, Harlequin; Elbert Stone, Pantaloon; and Wilbur, Scaramouche. Gerry is getting to be quite a capable girl. The housemother doesn’t monkey a great deal with the little kids, so Gerry does. She takes them to play in the Gym, showers them, tubs them, etc., sometimes with the consent, sometimes at the request of the housemother. This morning we met her and Edna bringing a whole herd of little girls and boys back from the city library, where they had attended a story hour. Betty and I were thinking maybe Gerry might make a little girls’ housemother someday. The Drys, Follises, and Jefferises have taken the orchestra to the beach for the week-end. They are to play tonight in the new Manzanita Community House.
My dad has been in the hospital a month with an infected finger — the little one on his right hand. They’ve amputated it now, and he’ll be home in a few days. He and Mother are coming down for Thanksgiving, and we’re getting slicked up so that we can show them that the younger generation knows a thing or two about plain and fancy housekeeping.
Well, I guess I’ll leave a little for Betty to say. I’ve just enough room to draw a picture of the ten-cent cedar chest.
Gobs of love,
Lewis
