A letter to Manning from Mama Atwood in California

August 8, 1927

Dear Dady,

We got back from Yosemite last night at 11:45 and found your letter.

…I have seen some wonderfully pretty things in the last two weeks.  And rode most to the top of several of the High Sierra mountains.  and got lots of thrills. And my ticket home calls for a ride on the Ocean from here to San Francisco. And on the S. P. R. R.over the High Sierra mountains past part of the country I was over last week.  Then down through Nevada and part of Kansas to Denver, Colorado to Oklahoma, and on to Fort Worth.

I will have to go miles and miles under a snow shed in the High Sierra Mountains.  I saw the train passing through sheds where I will go.  They were then higher than I was.  And I was looking down on the tree tops many, many feet below me….

Note to Mamie from Mama Atwood on the train 1927

August 28, 1927

Dearest Mamie,

I am feeling fine.  It is absolutely impossible to get in the observation car; it is so crowded.

I shall get in there early in the morning and camp out there hereafter.

I am feeling fine and I hope you are too.  Will write again tomorrow,  Love  Mother 

notes from a letter: Mama to Mamie Feb. 19, 1931

After Papa Atwood died in June, 1929, Mama tried to work for a long time.  She sold books door to door and later on Avon, which took her from town to town in south Texas.  Finally the kids all pledged $5 a month to help her with expenses. Thurston, the youngest child, was still living with Mama and trying to finish high school.

"….I had only enough money to pay for water, lights, gas and butter, and paid a dollar and twenty five cents for the little Turkey I got for Xmas dinner. And one dollar to give Thurston for his dues for agriculture at school. Frank was the only one to give me any money for this month up to the fifteenth.

So far this month butter is the only food bill I have paid for January and knowing that the boys don't get too large a salary it makes me uneasy to be getting in debt."

"(Thurston) works at a creamery every Saturday all day.  Gets only $1.00. He bought a shirt for each day's work. He got down to only one shirt to his name, except those that was rags. One of them had split and been sewed up nine times in the back. Next Saturday he wants to get him a belt."

Thurston, Papa Atwood, Edward and Frank in 1928

Newspaper clipping from the Comanche Chief, March, 1933

From the Comanche Chief, enclosed in a letter from Mama to her eldest daughter, Mamie who lived in Los Angeles in 1933

Postmarked March 15, 1933

LOCAL BANKS TO RECEIVE GOLD

Gold and gold certificates that have been in hiding for years are being turned in at the two banks of Comanche. One person Thursday deposited a quantity of gold, some of which bore the date of 1850.

The exact amount which had been turned in could not be learned but it is understood to be relatively large. The Government is calling upon all banks to make a report at the close of business today of the amount which has been turned in.

The Government is expected to fix a penalty or make non-negotiable gold and gold certificates that are not turned into the banks, one banker stated.

Letter from my mother when I was a baby

Dec. 19, 1938   ( I was three months old)

Dearest Mamie:  (Mamie was Daddy's older sister who lived in Los Angeles)

…..Bill and I are so very proud of our baby, and I am glad all of his family seem to be so
 fond of her. (Bill was Thurston (my dad's) nickname in the family.  Everybody called them Bill and Ann.)

…..We have been in Comanche for just a little more than a month and are with Alma an Harold.  Alma and I take turns cooking and it works out fine.  Of course taking care of the baby is a big job itself, but Bill is very sweet to help me a great deal, and does the entire washing, even for Alma and Mrs. Atwood.

 …..You can never know how much my life with him means to me…and I suppose no one can except me.  We believe we are the happiest people in the world, even if we haven't become rich or famous.

Sincerely

Ann

Aunt Mamie at Yosemite

 

There is another, earlier post on this blog about my Aunt Mamie and her trip to Yosemite.

Here are two more photos from that trip.  It was about 1928 or so, and I am pretty sure

Aunt Mamie and her husband Cecil Bellah were on their honeymoon.

Thurston's drawings

These are sketches that Thurston made before he graduated high school in 1934.  I am not sure of the exact date; they were found in a letter to his sister Mamie who lived in Los Angeles.

A side of his talent most people never saw.