Letter 15 ~ September 19, 1918

My mother (Hattie, picture right) fills me in on the news from College Hill and inserts a note from Carol Cunningham, my niece.

Addressed to Private Ward C. Griffing, 25th Company, 164th D.P. Brg., Camp Funston, Kansas
[Manhattan Kansas]
Thursday Evening, [September 19, 1918]

My Dear Ward:

It is just two weeks ago that you left us. I wonder how long it seems to you. It is very much longer to me. I trust that you have not taken any more cold this weather but it has been so cold that I fear you have.

[Your brother] Willis has gone to town to see that Mr. Fisher and they are to have a date with some girls I believe. He has been harrowing all day, walking – said he had not been so tired any day all summer. I thot it too bad he had planned to go away tonight.

Mrs. Hudson is sick so the day after we left Mrs. Hutchings, Mrs. Munger, Kittie, Abbie, and I all went over to see her and took some flowers that the club sent her – it pleased her very much. She gave me the socks she has knit for you with lots of good wishes for you. I believe they would feel good on your feet tonight. I am knitting as fast as I can. Will have them done before long.

Mrs. Vangilder was just talking with me. [She] said to remember her to you [and] that they all think of you. She is afraid her boy will have to go now – her only boy.

I called up the Frey’s today. Bertha said they had not gotten the car fixed. Had a letter from Minnie today. She told them that if there was any chance of going up to [Camp] Funston Sunday, for some of them to go for her Saturday evening. I suppose she has told you all about their troubles and there is no use for me to have done it. She got up there in time Monday morning to ring the 8:30 bell.

Carol did not enjoy the day with Edna’s boys. [She] said they were not nice [and] that they slapped her, etc. She says that she will go with me next time [and] that she don’t want to go to Aunt Emma’s again unless I am there.

There simply is no news to write. May our Father keep you and bless you my dear boy. Very lovingly, -- Mother

[P. S.] I do not believe that this letter is worth the postage. I think that Carol [Cunningham] is doing fine at school. She hardly talks of anything else at home. She is learning fast.

[Separate insert:]

I like school all right. We play house. I have new raincoat and cap. Like it. It is black and whit. – Carol

Carol Cunningham, my niece, at age three.

Footnotes:

• Carl Fisher lived on Yuma Street in Manhattan, Kansas. He was the 20 year-old son of Charles Fisher, a conductor on the interurban in Manhattan.

• Either Mary E. Hudson, the 67 year-old wife of retired farmer Samuel E. Hudson, or Verda E. Hudson, the 33 year-old wife of Harlow K. Hudson (son of the Samuel & Mary). Both families lived in adjacent farmhouses on our College Hill farm.

• Mrs. Marie Hutchings was the 48 year-old wife of Oliver A. Hutchings who owned a bookstore in Manhattan. Mrs. Hutchings was a native of Denmark.

• Mrs. Elizabeth Vangilder was a 57 year-old widow who lived next door to my Aunt Mary Griffing and her husband Lloyd Fry. She had one son, an 18 year-old named James Lowell Vangilder.

• Carol Cunningham was the five year-old daughter of my older sister, May Griffing, and her husband Claude Cunningham. May died from complications in giving birth to Carol and she was raised by her grandmother, Hattie Griffing, until Claude remarried.