Lloydminster, August 4th, 1942
Dear Art,
This is tuesday, I am two days late in my weekly letter to you, On Sunday afternoon I took Grandad and Grandmother and your Mother to Mr Milners farm where we spent the afternoon and evening, and had an enjoyable time, and last night I had a scout council meeting which I had to attend, to-night I have to go to the St John's Ambulance class at 8.30 so I am hoping to get most of this written before I go so that I can finish it when I return and then slip down and post it. The mxst exciting happening since I wrote you last was the exhibition which was just the general run of events to other years, We had a wonderful crowd on the Tuesday, a record crowd they had to stop selling tickets for the stand before the performance started. If they had anticipated just mob they would havearranged for two shows that evening. Georgie won 90 cents getting fourth for bird house and third for music, Not too bad. The kiddies seemed to have had a good time, as the had earned a little money previously for their expenses. and mother and I saw to it that the littles ones enjoyed themselves, but we kept expenses within reason, Two weeks from now I will be on Holiday, and I intend to take the kiddies down to North Battoeford again if my tires hold out, they seem to like going there, and enjoy the ride, and then I am hoping that if I can manage it Mother and I will go to Edmonton for aday, but that depends a lot on whether Margaret gets something to do or not, at the present time she has two possibilities one at Spies Office and the other with D? McKenna, although she has also applied at the Co-op. as we hear a girl is leaving there shortly. Glad to say that we areall well at home, The garden is wonderful this year, the best we have ever had. We have had a perfect season, or near so, and then with the summer water on and being able to water it when we wish we have been able to keep the land from getting too dry and w have the results. We have also anice array of flowers, nothing like Mr Coles or Delalande but agrea improvement for us, and with out much expense, as Miss Shannon gave Olie a lot of seedsand plants and then Mrs Cooke at Furness gave us some plantsalso. We have received two letters from you since I wrote the last time, one dated June 28th in which you mention about the number of hours flying you were doing at that time, and later in the same letter you mention that you have moved from the junior to the senior class and that you will be finished in afew more weeks, It was sad that your friend Smithy had an accident, We are hoping that you are always careful. The second letter received was written on July 8th, in you mention the nigh's experience at the hospital If you could have been home when Mother read that you would have laughed at her, I thought that she was going to split from ear to ear, honestly I did, and the kiddies got akick out of it too, There is a programme on the air over here which reads selected portions from letters of the boys overseas, and the letters accepted that is thewriters of them, receive 300 cigarettes so we are sending that letters of yours in, A few more cigaretts will not hurt, yet I read in the papers that you are not supposed to have more than 1,000 a month, By theway there is 1,00 on their way to you and a parcel. Too bad the shirts were not quite right, they were all that I could get in town, However since then I have purchased two more which are now on theirway to you. You mention in this letter that you had fini [page torn] flying but the wireless operator had some more air work to do so you had one or two more flights to do, reading between the lines of the two letters I came to the conclusion that you expected that your training period would be over as soon as those flights were completed and ready for operations, so now I am puzzling my brain to figu eout just what the posted to a conversion school signifies, It seems to me that you must be taking uo some more subjects, Is that right. I am cramping this in tight to conserve space as we are only allowed to use this sheet on this special postage rate which appper to make good time going across considering conditions, If you want acup of tea home you will almost have to bring your own tea with you as we are rationed on tea and coffee now, One ounze of tea per person over 16 years per week and 4 oza of coffee per week but you can't have both, that is you may have ½ oz tea dnt two of coffee, but not the full ration of each. But we should nt mind that as the sailors and merchant marine that bring it to Canada take some awful chances. and it it makes there burden lighter who are we to complain, Eileen is growing now, she is almost as big as Maxine and the two of them together look like twins, Dorothy and Delia are still fine girls ade George is quite the boy, Went down town last saturday night and bought himself a plaid tie, then came home and pressed his pants for Sunday,Takes quite a pride in his appearance. Olis is good around the house and garden and has been quite ahelp to Miss Shannon, He could have gone abck on that farm again this summer but after considering all things carefully we decided that it would be better if he stayed at home, Maragret does not grow to get that extra inch needed for the R.C.A.F. W.D. but is looking forward to getting some hing to do. I think shewil eventually. Mother is going to add afew lines so I will close now, Best of wishes from Dad and all at home,
Dad.
[The above is typewritten. Here the letter switches to handwriting]
Hello and here I am again don't know what you would do without me dropping a few words hope you are having a good time yet behaving yourself as we are. Well I suppose you have heard that your new nephew had arrived David Golward quite a big boy 7 Il 12 Ozs they call him Teddy. We are sending a present of carriage cover pillow fly to match in Blue silk very pretty from all the family including you cost 3.00 so I guess it was alright to say you too Well Art - there is not much to saw the three little ones are sure cute now Lots of Love
Hope you are well don't go getting into any more mischeife one dose of medicine is enough
Mother