Ethel to Lester, November 16, 1936

Nov. 16, 1936 Cleveland O.

Dearest Husband:

Just received your sweet letter of the 14th. Sweetie if you lay up in Buffalo when you get there this time write and let me know, cause then you would be home for Thanksgiving and we would buy a big fat Turkey and besides I won’t know whether to write any more or not. Darling I’m getting stronger every day and am in no pain, only my incision, stings once in a while. My legs look like pipe stems and my arms seem twice as long and at nite I don’t know what to do with them, but when you get home, I can wrap them around you and have some nice lovely – fresh cold feet just itching to be put on somebody’s back.
Darling, you saved quite a bit, considering you sent home $12 every month, and beside you didn’t have the job you got now. And darling you must and need a new overcoat this winter.
Honey, you don’t know what it means to me, to have a husband you can trust. I was just thinking maybe we haven’t got things as nice or easy as Wirt and grace had them, but I think we are a darn sight happier and more in love with one another then they ever were, I have got to know Wirt pretty well, this summer and between you cand me, I don’t think Grace had it so nice with him. He thinks all the women are crazy about him and that he can take his pick. Well here’s one baby, he might think likes him, but he turns my stomach, and when he came to the hospital to see me, I was tickled pink when he left. He whines continually and has I trouble about twice as bad as before.
Won’t it be nice when you get home, and get a jug of beer and make toasted souse of cheese sandwiches, and chew the fat and argue. At least it is something to look forward to. Did you buy up a supply of cigarettes again? And did you get yourself some of those heavy underwear?
How the Indian? Still being jipped? And they bey begged you to change watches again?
They brought a fellow to the hospital while I was there and he was a fireman on a freighter onloading at Republic and he fell off the ladder on the dock and fractured his legs. So please be awfully careful. And I won’t write again till I hear from you. Just drop me a card if you are too busy or tired to write. Can you picture the day when you’ll get home. It gives me shivers up and down my spine. Isn’t it a wonderful feeling? And now please stop worrying about me, but don’t stop loving me, cause I’m getting along fine, even if I did come home before the doctor wanted me to, and will be almost as good as new when you get home.
Well here’s hoping you’ll be home for Thanksgiving and if not soon afterwards and sweetie I love you so much I could burst. Your loving wife Ethel