4/13/39
Darling Girl:
I have been expecting to receive the letters for some time, so it didn’t frighten me.
The Battle-axe’s letter infuriates me. I am sorry for Bill as I would be for anyone who is not healthy, but I fail to see where you have any responsibility. You are fortunate to have gotten out of the deal with your own health. He displayed his usual selfish streak by marrying you when he must have known that he would always be a liability to you. If his mother had “burdened her heart” a little less and burdened her pocket-book and hair brush a little more, there are at least four of us who would not be a lot happier. The letter looks to me as if she were trying to see you to ask you for help, either to go back to him and take care of him, or help finance a couple more years of “rest” for him. Maybe it would “do me (her) so much good to see you,” but it would make a nervous wreck out of you, and I would avoid it like poison if I were you. Let me again advise you to let Burns make all the decisions. Has he seen this letter (and all similar ones, for that matter)? If not, it would be well to ask him if he cares to, and let him read them for his own information so that he may advise you correctly. Bill didn’t even stick to you when you were perfectly healthy, and he never provided even the necessity of clothing, so I feel that your responsibilities are definitely nil.
Darling, the Kennedys just aren’t our kind of people. That letter is horrible. There are 310 words in it, 63 of which are underlined, and 5 of which are doubly underscored. I am angry that anyone should insult your intelligence by writing you such a sloppy, meaningless, mess. It is so overdone, so completely devoid of intelligent thought, that I hope we may soon be free of all related associations.
PLEASE NOTE—Don’t write or say anything to her without Burn’s knowledge and approval. If you feel that you must write something, keep a copy, and have Burns read the one you send her, and let him mail it. I really feel though that you will be able to avoid her for another month.
I have been keeping complete copies of all of the last two weeks’ letters and shall continue to so do. This applies to penciled remarks and other additions. May I suggest that if you truly want originals, you might write your answers on the backs of my originals. But in any case, I shall hold the copies.
As concerns mailing schedules, I believe that anything mailed before noon on Friday reaches me Saturday morning. You’re awfully sweet to think of getting me a letter Saturday, for it certainly helps out the week-ends.
I hope this entire mess turns out for the best in the near future. We have done excellently thus far, and we are all set if we can keep it up. Burns’ optimism is encouraging. He wouldn’t be able to sleep nights if he knew how much I am dependent on his abilities.
I shall send Wayne a Birthday card on the 17th, and it should reach him on the 19th.
When you see Dotty, give her a slap on the back for me.
Speaking of weather, we had a fifteen minute blizzard out here last night. And the “Windy City” is cock-eyed. They don’t even know what wind is out there. The corner of 5th and Cooper in Camden makes Michigan Blvd. seem as windless as the inside of a barn on a hot summer day. It blew so hard last night while it was snowing that it pushed in one side of my hat!
I spent about an hour with Al last night and we talked apartments. The ones I mentioned before are only four blocks from the University of Pennsylvania! Does that put a bug in your ear. Also, I have talked to a lot of people lately and apparently Al also has, and the general consensus of opinion leads to the following plan, which I think is good. If I continue to get along as well as I have with the RCAM, the important thing to do is to stay with them. The college education means little while I am with the RCAM, as I am already in, and promotions will be based on seniority and ability and not merely on college credits. The second point is to have enough saved so that if I should ever decide to leave the RCAM, that I can do so and enter college immediately, with enough reserve to finish my degree. Thirdly, I should take part time work so that I will gradually finish before the second item should occur.
This is the way it will work.
CASE I. –I continue to work for the RCAM, or at least, continue to work at present or better wages.
I would first save enough for a year of school, and earmark it for that purpose. Then I would take night and Saturday courses until I had finished my bach’s degree. My master’s and doctor’s would follow in a like manner, unless it became desirable to follow out plan two for the advanced degrees as suggested for the bach’s in the following.
CASE II. –I should become dissatisfied or fired or something.
In this case, as in the first, the initial move would be to save enough for the year of school. If I asked for a raise, for instance, and business conditions were such that I couldn’t get it, then I could say, “sorry, boss, but I think I shall go back to school for a year.” The ability to make a move like that is worth money. I have employed it twice already. When I left Fast’s, they offered me $100 per month to stay. The next time I was on their pay-roll, they gave me $151 per month! Similarly at Well’s, they offered me $25 per week to stay, and paid me $27 per week to come back and $35 per week to stay after I was back.
This is probably all very boring. The question instantly arises as to where you fit in the new schedule. Well, I have spent a good deal of time thinking it over, and there seems to be one plan which stands out. I am not even suggesting it, but am merely mentioning it for your comments. First, if you come out here in January or so, you will have to work for at least two years under the plan I previously suggested. The system of trying to be together as much as possible, and yet not violate any of the social proprieties is a difficult one, and would work quite a mental strain on both of us. You would probably work in Philly, and therefore one of us would have to commute. To put it bluntly, if you are willing to work for the first couple of years of our married life, I don’t see too much objection to our getting married sometime about six months or a year after your arrival here, provided my present job and budget hold out. If we rush ahead blindly, Darling, we will run into a dead-end street in a couple of years time, but if we take things slowly, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t come out where John and Blenda are now—with me ten years younger than he is. It is a long grind, baby girl, but I feel it will be a more pleasant one with you near me and married to me than with both of us struggling alone.
In the past, all of my good plans have worked, and my poor ones have died a natural death—although I murdered a couple of them in cold blood when I saw how wrong I was. On this basis, I know that our present difficulties will come through. Let me know, darling, what you think of the latest effort. As to where you come in—guessing—about a year earlier.
I am sending the Battle-axe’s letter under separate cover and by regular mail.
I sort of love you, precious. We just have to make them dreams come true.
Your husband, Cy