The second summer we were here was full of such sickness as I had never seen or thought of. . . . It was typhoid.

In the process of unpacking from our recent move, I have at my hand once again a letter that my Great-Grandma Nourse wrote from Louisiana in 1938 to a friend in California. It tells the story of her family’s life after their move from California to Louisiana and covers a roughly four year period during the Great Depression from around 1934 to 1938. It was written to an old family friend back in California and was later returned to my grandmother by one of that friend’s descendants.

The purpose of this post is to share that letter.

One of those women, my mother’s mother, had the strongest influence of all my grandparents on the shaping of my own upbringing and worldview. (You’d have to ask my brother Wes and sister Rachel if they would say the same, but I think they would.) Grandma Jackson was a principled and kind woman, a dedicated pentacostal Christian with an enduring heart for service and–like all her clan–strong convictions.

Her clan were the Nourses, and my grandma–Mary Alice to her friends–was the second of six surviving children. Through all my youth run memories of family reunions and intermittent visits with Uncles Bill and Tilford, and Aunts Winnie, Betty, and Ruth their many children and grandchildren.

I never knew their mother, my Great-Grandma Nourse; she died before I was born. But the house she lived in at the end of her life was across the street from my high school alma mater, and her picture–and that of her husband and mother and father–was always in my grandma’s home, wherever she lived.

To me, all these people and names were merely appendages to my grandmother. My grandmother I knew from my youngest days–an influential and lovely presence in my mother’s life–and in my own. But the others were just . . . accessories.

Of course what I didn’t appreciate at the time was the these people and faces weren’t just accessories to my grandmother. They were her dearest kin, an essential part of who she was. Her life with them shaped her into who she was–and by extension, shaped me. This letter captures some of the crucible that did the shaping.

In the summer of 1934 when the bulk of the story here related began, my Great-Grandpa Charles was 54, Great-Grandma was 52, William was just 20, Mary Alice (my grandmother) was 18, Tilford was 17, Winnie was 16, Betty was 14, and Ruth was 8.

Editorial Note: The letter is hand-written in ink with a dip pin. You can see the ink strengthen and fade between each dip in the inkpot. Great-Grandma was a good speller (better than me, certainly). There are no noticeable written corrections, and everything she wrote was spelled correctly and captured here as she wrote it. Punctuation is almost entirely as she wrote it, although I’ve taken some mild liberties when deciphering whether a particular blot was a comma or a period or a dash. The stamp has been cut from the envelope, but the Shreveport, LA post mark is clear.

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Cedar Grove Station, Shreveport, La
[Postmarked Jun 24, 1938]

Dear Mrs. Sawyer,

I think you may understand how I just neglected all correspondence. We were so far from all friends when we move here. There were so many to whom I should have written.

We had been in Louisiana only a few weeks when the children began having chills and fever. When cold weather came, we were well through the winter except myself. I had sores on my legs (leg ulcers). So I was not able to get around much–but I wasn’t really sick. I got better in the spring. But what a Summer that was. So I just neglected letter writing more and more, but I do love you, just as I love my own family, you–who through all the years were such a good friend to my mother–and have always been the same true friend to me. My folks wrote to me about Mr. Sawyer’s failing health, and his failing sight. Of course I knew he had almost lost his hearing. I can picture you still active and how Mr. S. must find comfort in having you always near. I’m afraid the care of the flowers and shrubbery is too much. I know you like to work with flowers, but you need help. When I last saw you, you were having trouble with your eyes. Are they better now?

Winnie writes that Pa seems about as usual. I would like to go to California to see him and all of you. I think I shall–God willing. I am not wanting to move–the boys and Charles talk of moving back, and we may do it, but it will be somebody besides me that will do the necessary pushing.

The second summer we were here was full of such sickness as I had never seen or thought of. First Ruth had fever (it was typhoid) but she was not very sick at first. She got over it in two or three weeks. But in the mean time Charles and William and Tilford all took chills and fever. Tilford was desperately sick and the others having a chill every day. I was so anxious about Tilford, and Ruth was off my mind as I thought she was getting well. So I stayed by Tilford’s bedside, and Ruth ate pickles. Then she really did get sick. So I left Tilford for Mary Alice to care for, and brought Ruth to the hospital. I was there with her for five days, and she was very close to death. There they found out it was typhoid and put her in the contagious ward where I could not stay with her or even see her.

So I went back to the others. Charles had great carbuncles on his back, and Tilford hadn’t been getting along in my absence. Betty and Winnie were sick in bed. It was all typhoid, but Betty’s settled in her lungs, and Winnie had dysentery. We took Charles to the hospital because I didn’t know how to take care of him. The carbuncles were so painful and he had a chill every day. Then one day William fainted (he had been up around after getting over the chills.) Well, the fainting was the beginning of typhoid. So he became delirious, and was never rational again for about five weeks. He suffered awful pain in his limbs, and demanded my constant care. I never saw anything more pathetic [used in the sense “arousing of sympathy”, ed.] then the sight of a strong young man, reduced to the state of a baby. He cried if I left him, and got so poor I could lift him. Tilford was crawling about, walking with help. Winnie and Betty still sick in bed, and Charles and Ruth in the hospital. But Mary Alice was my faithful helper. In the night, I would be on the point of calling her, only to have her there before I could call. She would wake and come to see if she could help.

Now we were in the home of a brother and sister in the Lord. We had been living in a small house on their place, and when Ruth got sick Mrs. Pease invited me to bring her to their more comfortable home to care for her. In the meantime her children got sick–and Barbara, Ruth’s chum died. Her death was a shock to all of us, and her mother was so lonesome and so sorrowful that she wanted us with her, and more than that our children were so sick we had to stay. It was fruit time , garden time, and there was no end of work. Mary Alice worked as a girl never ought to work. She said she would feel that she had fever, but she would pray and work. Anyway she never did get sick. The neighbors were afraid of contagion, except the pastor and his family. They always came to pray when we sent for them, only when they too had typhoid, and then we had to go and pray with them . I know know who had it first. You see chills and fever was common, and it would imperceptibly run into typhoid.

Winnie and Betty got up after about three weeks and began to do light work like wiping dishes. Every time we had a chance we would send to a telephone to make inquiry about Ruth and Charles. The reports began to come that Ruth wasn’t doing at all well. I couldn’t leave William. So I committed Ruth to the nurses and to God. But I got so I didn’t want anyone to go to the telephone. But one day a neighbor was down at the store, and he thought it would be kind for him to call the hospital to make inquiry for me. He brought back word that Ruth was failing still. I felt that if I couldn’t see her, I’d die–Oh such a burden. So I went away out in the woods to pray, and Mrs. Pease soon stole out to join me. When we got back to the house, she said, “I’ll get a way for you to go to Shreveport.” I said, “I don’t want to go tonight, but I want to go tomorrow, and I’ll get them to let me stay with her.”

So next morning I took care of both the boys. William was still delirious, and Tilford was so weak I had to help him bather. Winnie and Betty were convalescing.

I had not seen Ruth for five weeks. She was in the contagious ward and visitors were not admitted there except in extremity. Well the extremity had come, and they let me go in. Such a shadow of herself I found little Ruth, but she had never been delirious. But oh how glad I was that I had nursed my boys at home. They were overworked at the hospital, and delirious helpless patients had a sorry time. The nurses loved little Ruth, and she is her Grandma Hogan in nature. She waited on herself to the limit of her strength, and was always in her right mind. But oh she was burned up with fever, and wasted to a shadow. A woman who had been admitted to see her husband, advised me to wait patiently, and be very careful to observe all rules for visitors. They allowed me a bench in the corridor and there I slept ten nights. At first I would just steal down the hall where I could look in, and wave at Ruth. Then I would make motions to her urging her to eat. So at last one day the matron said, “Would you like to take her tray and feed her?” Did I want to? I was the happiest mother in Shreveport. From that time on, I took her meals to her, and coaxed her to eat. They were almost despairing of her life–They wanted to get blood for a blood transfusion but something would happen. Once the doctor gave his own blood, but they had an accident with it. Then they sent out to the Pease neighborhood, and a whole load of young folks came for blood tests, and a young man gave his blood, gave it the second time. Before they got the blood, prayers had been answered. So the doctor said, she is better, but she will improve faster with the transfusion. So she got well so fast that I soon went back to Pease’s. Charles was discharged from the hospital at that time. I went back to Pease’s and determined to move to Shreveport before Ruth should leave the hospital. So I came to town with a few dollars that Winnie had sent me, found an apartment, told the woman all about ourselves, that we were all sick except two, but she took us in, and never even thought of putting us out, even when we got behind on rent. I couldn’t move in for William was too sick. But the rest came.

Mary Alice would write to me. Charles and Tilford were just able to crawl and Winnie and Betty only a trifle stronger. It was now about Nov 1. Ruth was discharged the next day after they moved, and Mary Alice felt a terrible load of responsibility about her. So, as William was better, I sent Betty back to wait on him, and came to Cedar Grove. But a friend drove out in her car, and William did so beg to come that they wrapped him up and brought him home. I did anything I could. Aunt Winnie and Aunt Ruth and Aunt Elizabeth helped us, and another dear one in California. Winnie got work about Thanksgiving. Mary Alice and Betty got night work in a pecan house in December. I got a little nursing. The boys gradually gained strength. Tilford sold honey and helped at a pecan stand.

William could get to town and around a little, but Charles got sick again about Christmas. Tilford got a real job in March, but William when got able to work couldn’t find anything to do. Charles was still sick. Mary Alice went to Rodessa to work for a while. William got work at the furniture place where he is in now–in July–just a year from the time he was taken sick.

Charles and Ruth and I went to Coushatta that spring. It’s country, and I thought I might do Sunday School work among the folks we knew down there, who have few opportunities. Charles improved in health very fast, and I was happy there. Tilford got work there, and Betty was there in High School. Tilford’s work gave out, and he came back to Shreveport. Soon he got work. So both boys had steady work here. We moved to a furnished apartment near their work, and Betty and Ruth were in School. About the time we moved to Shreveport, Mary Alice who had been working, went to the District Council meeting of the Assemblies of God, and from there went with Brother Nelson (He’s head of the school) to Southwestern Bible School. She has worked these two years and gone to school–has one more year. She has offered herself for the foreign mission field–and when God opens the way she expects to go to Africa. But the Assemblies never send missionaries abroad until they have been tried at home. So she will probably be with us three to five years.

Winnie went to the Bible School this past year. She came home in May, let a little debt at the school. So she has a nurse’s position now earning money to pay her debt. She is in a beautiful home, cares for two little children. She worked so hard here before she went there, that it seems like a real rest to her.

Mary Alice was at home two or three months during the winter. My leg was bad and she came home to help me. My leg is lots better, but the veins are enlarged and circulation is poor, so it is hard to heal. I am well. Work as hard as I ever did.

We got ahead far enough to buy furniture. So we moved back here to Cedar Grove about a year ago, just two blocks from where we first moved. You may be sure we count that woman who rented us the apartment, among our very good friends, go to see her quite often and she comes occasionally, but she is always busy. Her husband was out of work when we went to her hourse. So all they had was what she made. He had been laid off, but got his good job back, and they have built a garage apartment, and rent that too. So they seem to be prospering.

William and Tilford have work always except when their companies have a slack time–they get laid off a few weeks sometime. Tilford has gone to school at night, and learned welding. So he will be fitted for more pay when there is an opening.

Both boys have a good deal of responsibility in the church, and perhaps they are getting training for life as valuable as school, although I think both may still go to school. Tilford takes care of the church funds. We are building a church, and there is lots of book keeping. William is Sunday School Superintendent.

Mrs. Sawyer, you, being a mother will excuse my pride in my children. Bust as you feel proud of your fine children and grandchildren, so I do of mine. I’m so glad their house is built on the rock–for all eternity, and am still praying that they will weather all the stormes of life, and not be overcome by the manifold temptations that tend to make Christians grow discouraged.

I feel as though we have been through deep waters, but I do thank God that he led us through, for truly it was too much for me–I had no wisdom, “Here I’ll raise my Ebeneezer.” Hither by His help I’ve come. How I would love to visit you for a day. If I get to California I surely will.

I hope you don’t blame me that I don’t feel quite willing to tear up home right now, and move. I do love Pa and the girls, but I haven’t the courage to move right now. If the rest arrange it all, I won’t object. But I love Louisiana as I do Dakota, and Washington, and California. They have all been home to me, and all are beautiful in their way.

Now if you will write me one of your good letters, I’ll know that you waded clear through to the end of this.

Betty ways, Mama, I want to write to Mrs. Sawyer, but I don’t know her so well. You write a real letter. Well, I got started, and I guess I’ve written two or three.

I would like so well to know more of the details of your family than my folks write me. Please let me hear.

Love as ever,

Carlie