Nagrom, WN

August 5, 1915

Dear Friend Daniel:

Well how are you making it by now? I am just fine and hope you can say the same. It has been quite some time since I got your letter and ought to have answered it before but was to lazy I guess. That is my only excuse I have to offer anyway. I was going to write to you last Sunday but had to work that day so had to put it off for awhile.

Well how goes it in Wyoming by now? Suppose you are working pretty hard these days harvesting the crop. Suppose it is pretty warm there now also. We are having fine weather now just warm enough to be pleasant. I don’t think it will get very hot anymore this summer.

You ought to be here to go fishing with me next Sunday. It happens to be my birthday and I am going to celebrate it by going fishing. Don’t you think that is a pretty good way to celebrate? It is lucky it comes on Sunday, if it was any other day I should have to celebrate with the big saw. Well I don’t know any new to tell you as there is not much doing here and I haven’t been any place since the Fourth and I haven’t heard much from any of the folks since then either so am short of news. Well guess I will read the paper for a while and then pull in.

 Maybe next time I can think of more to write.

Your pal, Roy

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August 5, 1915

Dear diary,

Big news, Papa says we are now moving to Belle Fourche as soon as September is here. I hardly think we will make it that soon with all the threshing still to do but it does look like we will move for at least the fall and winter if not permanently. I won’t mind living in town but I do wish it were Puyallup. And I don’t have to tell you why.

The Grain is ripening slowly this year no one is harvesting yet. This had been a cool, wet summer for a change. That’s why I hardly think we will be moving as soon as September. Time will tell I guess.

I wonder if there are any Book and Thimble type clubs in Belle Fourche. I am starting to really enjoy our meetings.  We had a big crowd at the one last Saturday. The weather was so pleasant we held it outside under the shade trees. 

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August 8, 1915

Dear Diary,

I am feeling blue. Today is Roy’s birthday and I miss being with him on his special day. As it is a Sunday I bet he isn’t working either. I do hope he is doing something fun.  I doubt he went to Puyallup. I know his mother would make him a cake if he did.  If he were here I certainly would.  This year I think I’d make him a lemon sponge cake and serve a berry compote on the side.  For dinner we’d have fried chicken, potato salad and fresh greens from my garden. Making it would be a labor of love, not work at all.

Instead I had to settle on sending him a card and some nice poems. Maybe next year will be different. 

Steven Giles was around this week to show off his shiny new car.  Seems more and more folks are getting one.  If we actually decide to live in town maybe we will end up with one too, though Papa says never. Getting around here has gotten easier since all the neighbors decided to work together to fix the roads. The county sure wasn’t doing it. 

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August 10, 1915

Dear Mae:

Well here I am once again ready for a short chat. Intended to write to you last evening but took a sudden notion to go fishing, so didn’t have the time. Well how are you feeling this lovely evening. Fine I hope. I am still feeling good only a wee bit tired just now. It was pretty warm today and we have an awful rough place to work, have to climb of a pretty high hill to get to it and that makes it pretty bad when it is warm.

Your last letter came last night and I was certainly glad to get it as it had been more than two weeks since I had a letter and I couldn’t help being worried a little bit. Was some what surprised to hear that you are going to move to town and so soon. I won’t get to write you more than one more letter to Mona. I hope you will like it down there and have a good time. I would surely like to be there to go with you to the fair but is so useless to make a wish like that for it is all but impossible. I may go down to the Puyallup fair this year if all goes well until that time. It is a long time yet and lots might happen before then so can’t figure much on it yet.

Is Mr. Phillips going to rent that lodging house that he talked of renting last winter?

Last Sunday was my birthday. I celebrated by going fishing so of course you know that I had a good time. Mr. Cook my partner and myself packed up Saturday evening and walked about five miles up the creek (not the same creek that we went to last time) and slept out under the stars. We got up bright and early and started angling for the shifty trout. It took us only a short time to catch enough for breakfast, we certainly had a fine feed. Mr. Cook acted as chief cook and I cleaned the fish. We fished until about noon and then had another big feed before starting back to camp. We were just about all in when we got back, at least I was and I guess the others were in the same fix.

Mr. Cook undertook to give me a birth-day whipping but didn’t have much success with it. I had a letter from Mother last night and three birthday cards, one from Richard, one from my sister in law and the other from Mother. Richard’s leg is well now. He started away yesterday for east of the mountains to thresh. Said he expected to be gone about two months. Mother is pretty well for her. She said that Lida had been away visiting for a couple of weeks. She stayed a week with Blanche in Tacoma and a week in Buckley with a girl friend she has there.

• 

Mother didn’t say any thing about any of your folks except your Aunt Ann and all she said about her was that she had just been over for a short visit. I suppose the rest must be all right or she would have said something about them. I haven’t heard anything of Justin since he was here. Have you heard from him lately?

You ought to have been here and went to church last Friday evening. There was a meeting in the dance hall. Gus and I went over but the rest of the rough necks wouldn’t go so there wasn’t much of a crowd. Nearly all women and kids. Well I am almost to the end of my paper so will have to cut it short for now.

Best regards to all

 Bye bye, Roy