Martyrs' Manse,
Kingsport,
October, 1928
Gil,
Well that's that resolved. Here I thought Britain had delegated Canadian affairs to Canada! Not that I'm complaining; Her verdict that our women are indeed people, and as such liable to sit in senate if so minded, has soothed more than Phil's mathematical soul at this end. Kitty drafted a terrifying number of columns to wider papers, and was nerving herself to send them when the verdict came through. That she hadn't already surprised me. Apparently, Kitty can't write for another paper while in The Chronicle's employ. I hadn't realised this until recently, when an evening at Larkrise subjected me to a treatise on the nuances of newspaper details. I blame your daughter embarking on this mission to reclaim Glen Notes. Kitty can talk of nothing else. I don't complain as it made a change from the strange death of Lloyd McMillan. It sounded a deeply unfortunate business, and the Investigateers had quite the animated discussion about it. Did you know a body can drift a fair ways away from its origin-point after you throw it in a river? Helen and Christopher were fascinated. So was Tuesday, though that may have been because the discussion was happening over an uncarved ham, something his long-nosed canine self found riveting.
No luck with Naomi, I'm afraid. I mentioned your proposal, but Horley Hall still needs her to teach the Cambridge Course.
At Fox Corner, little Iain has yet another ear ache, and your son and daughter-in-law want to stick something in his ears. Tubes? All Greek to me, but you'll understand.
Oh, and in a misadventure you will appreciate, Jake's youngest recently took a notion to swallow a whole bottle of Redfern's Purple Pills on a bet. In the ensuing rush for a doctor, I don't suppose he got any winnings. Everyone from his overwrought mother to little Bruce Meredith was just furious with him. I don't think he'll do it again. Faith boxed his ears and Jem gave him a list of safer pranks to pull; I'm not sure his mother is as grateful as she should be for that!
You can add your own scolding to the list when we meet for the annual grouse shoot. See you shortly – I'm off to recruit candidates for session. It's our year for elections and no one wants to apply.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
Jo
Ingleside,
Glen St Mary,
October, 1928
Jo,
One of those days. I spoke to Fox Corner and advised they try the tubes. I know Mara can survive on no sleep, and Shirley's made a career of same, but it's getting absurd. If nothing else, Iain can't be comfortable.
Then I oversaw a Shore Road scalding. When I got back, Susan was grumpily dissecting an Elephant Foot from the Douglas and Flagg pastry counter. (For Elephant Feet read cream puffs and ask Bruce to explain. He renamed them age six and it stuck.)
I thought she looked grey, and I chalked it up to the ongoing Great Glen Paper Caper while I swiped an Elephant Foot for myself. Then Anne caught me up on Maple St goings-on and I thought it was that. Susan never wanted Rilla to move to Toronto.
She obviously called Anne for a long-distance heart-to-heart about the baby quandary. You know, I think she and Ken might sort themselves out if it weren't for other people's children. They keep having them, you see. Miranda's just had a girl, Betty another boy, Gertrude ditto. No one means it as a jab – how could they? But Rilla feels it that way, especially with Ken so adamant he doesn't want more children.
You're spending Thanksgiving at Mount Holly, aren't you? I'll say a prayer that whoever inherits your church(es) for Harvest Festival does them justice.
Love ever,
Gil
Martyrs' Manse,
Kingsport,
December 1928
John,
It's strange not having Naomi around for Christmas. How do you manage it so gracefully? You make it look easy. Her latest letter says she's holidaying with your children, and I'm comforted by that. Family isn't always blood.
The usual outreach, food ministry, and concerts keep me busy. This year, I also have an application to the Heritage Trust to submit. Waterford's Holy Trinity badly needs restoring. We've patched it as best we can, but the heating failed last week, there's a leak in the narthex, and irreparable warping in the choir loft. We are officially beyond my modest architectural skills. Since Holy Trinity is inexplicably now a Listed Building, the Heritage Trust it is.
Before I forget, Naomi's latest letter said something about the ACS being now, at least on paper, the property of the Methodist Mission. Is this right? I was going to ask Nathan last time we spoke, but our three minutes ran out before I could. Even if they hadn't, I was due at Waterford to fix the caulking on the Andrews property. It's warped to rival Waterford's choir loft. So, the finer details of Oldham House slipped my mind.
Expect another letter at least before the year is out. I am off to catch a train Bolingbroke way, and cannot afford to miss it.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch,
Jo
New Manse,
Glen St Mary,
January, 1929
Happy Christmas, Jo, and forgive the late salutation.
First I got caught up in this year's set of Christmas sermons, and then we all had flu. I forget exactly who had what when. I think the Kingsport children gave it to the Ingleside ones, who gave it to Di, then Alastair. The Kingsport adults had already had it, but I hadn't, and neither had Rosemary. Gil caught it next, as did Drs. Parker and Coulter. You remember that young over harbour locum-turned-doctor. Faith, Jem and Bruce picked up the local slack in lieu of a holiday. I lay in bed and meditated on my Latin grammar days. Qui custodis etc.
When we recovered, Sophy caught the Dread Lurgy again, as did Iain, with an earache complication. That prompted Gil and Faith to go ahead with the tubes operation - on the kitchen table! It still gives me chills. You could see Mara didn't find it exhilarating either, but she didn't stop them doing it. I fancy she misses sleep.
When I recovered, I found Una's letter among our neglected post. By all accounts, she and your daughter enjoyed a lovely holiday together. They shared it Carl with Li, as you doubtless heard. I'm envious; I should like to meet the woman my son married.
About which; Nathan Arnold isn't wrong about the ACS being a Methodist preserve. Never tell Miss Cornelia that strictly speaking, my little boy was married in the Methodist church. I'm not sure I'm bothered; He lost Orthodoxy somewhere in Singapore's botanical gardens to gratifying effect. But you know Cornelia; She's already indignant that Carl married a Woman From Away. If she discovers a Methodist performed the marriage, we'll never hear the end of it. She takes opportunity to remind me that I'm supposed to mind about Carl being converted by one of the heathens – her words, not mine. Frankly, I can't find the energy. Li is sacred to Carl, friend to Una and devotee of Nenni the cat. That is enough.
Una's description of the service was glowing. It sounded extremely private, but very loving. I'm glad your daughter and Fred Arnold could be there. Rosemary and I would have gone if summoned, and forget Christmas. As Norman frequently reminds me, it's a pagan ritual superimposed on our Calvinistic brethren by undisciplined, degenerate, and delinquent protestants. I don't agree, but the church owes me a sabbatical. I'd have taken it for this.
Secretly, I suspect Una and Carl enjoyed the fun of springing a surprise on us. Carl's always had an impish streak. People forget because Faith's is so much more visible. So, we're gorging on wedding photos. They aren't Di's standard, but you can see the young people are happy. Li wears a smile the way ordinary people wear baubles, and Carl wears a lizard, ditto.
She won't hear of Una leaving Trinity House, either. Li says it wouldn't be a home without Una. Carl thinks Li's sort of adopted Una as a sister since her own family won't speak to her. They're still negotiating the details of the arrangement – who plays mother at the teapot, and all that sort of thing – but seem, for the present to rub along smoothly.
As to how we get through the holiday – Rosemary says that Episcopalians say something's a tradition if you do it more than three times. Maybe that's the secret. I think it's more than that. We've made new rituals since Una and Carl went abroad. The ritual opening of their Christmas letter is the main one. Rosemary slits the seal with a Singaporean letter opener, and I squint over my daughter's miniscule. I didn't used to have to, but these days it looks awfully fine and small, even under the brightest light. Don't let on. It's part of the tradition now. I like to picture her from her writing. All her jumble of minutiae and festivity. I'd hate it to change.
We take turns guessing what will be the Singapore Christmas parcel, too. There's always something improbable – mummified grasshoppers, hollow books, once a wind-up nun that boxed when wound-up.
Sometimes, I indulge myself in imaging Una home. Then I remember that for Una and Carl home isn't the Glen, it's Trinity House, Evelyn Road, Singapore. It's Li and the animals – monkey inclusive! Once, I too, forged my happiness. This is theirs. I' m grateful for the windows I get into it.
Love and blessings,
J. M.
Martyrs' Manse,
Kingsport,
February, 1929
John,
Pass on my congratulations to Carl and Li, and my apologies to Gil that my daughter still won't come home. Currently, Naomi's introducing Oldham's Matriculation Course to the Ipoh ACS. This despite the fact the school is clear that expectant women cannot teach. Do not take that to mean she is free to pen the editorial section of The Glen Notes in its new iteration, if the coup on Lowbridge ever succeeds. She's got more than enough to occupy her at the school without teaching.
I don't know how I feel about my grandchildren being born abroad. It's not that I don't think Ipoh and its environs safe. Rural roads aside, they sound safe as houses. It's much more selfish than that; I got used to meeting my grandchildren. That does nothing to diminish my delight, nor Phil's either. If you ever take your sabbatical, you could go to Singapore. From there, I understand it's only a very little journey over the causeway and on to Ipoh. You'd have to request the train stop, but that's a minor detail. We could never get away, parish affairs being what they are. The Secretariat is still short candidates for Elders. Have you ever known the like? I'm used to being spoiled for choice. But then, I suppose the presiding generation is waning, and the young people are – understandably! – reluctant to engage in the temperamental politics of Session. I don't blame them. I'd sooner be winterising boats, myself.
Be well, do good work and keep in touch.
Jo
P.S. I infer from something Shirley said over the Agape last week that Rilla Ford is expecting another baby. That cannot be right, is it?
Ingleside,
Glen St Mary,
Feb., 1929
Jo,
You are right about Rilla. She's pregnant. Ken's furious. So am I, if I'm honest. I'm even more furious that she agreed to travel to us at Christmas. Of all the bloody-minded risks…Forgive me.
If it wasn't one thing, it was another, this holiday. Oh, for the days when Christmas was a magical day set apart from time, space and mundanity! Alas, age has rubbed some of the magic off, and this year Santa wore his red flannel to ward off bronchitis as much as because 'tis the season.
We had to keep the magic alive for the babies, though. Christopher was best at it. He'd obviously wised up to Santa, and so had Helen. But they were excellent Chief Elves, helping a congested St Nick spread comfort and joy rather than influenza.
It was brutal, Jo. The people who weren't sick became sick. Anthony screamed everlastingly. Persis Ford tried to manage him while looking exhausted herself. Ken seethed like a kettle boiling dry and tried not to show it. Rilla was green because of the baby and because of the thing we all caught.
Rosemary got it particularly badly, so before she gave it to me, I had to minister to John's nerves as well as her fever. Susan succumbed after I did, and because I was in bed, I couldn't force Susan into hers. So, Shirley did that while Mara boiled vats of broth with one hand and tried to comfort her screaming child with the other.
I got well, and treated said child with rubber tube insertion. The blessed boy had the bad manners to almost die on me for my trouble. And Mara bloody knew it. Sorry. But there's nothing like performing a tricky procedure while the intelligent and rightly anxious mother recites an eleventh-hour rosary stage left. I wondered hideously what we'd do if it all went pear-shaped, and Faith, opposite, mouthed toss a coin for it. Apparently, this is how she and Jem delegate all life's unpleasantnesses.
Since then, the Fords have travelled home, and I'm worried long-distance about Rilla. At least that awful flu is over. It will be Miss Abby's birthday soon, and Anne's. You'd better believe I'm counting the days. We need a celebration that feels like a celebration!
Love ever,
Gil
New Manse,
Glen St Mary,
March, 1929,
Jo,
How goes your Heritage Trust application to restore Holy Trinity? I recently filed one for our church hall refurbishment (it's merely a Grade B Listed Building), so you have my heartfelt sympathy. The paperwork involved is like nothing on earth. While completing it, I developed a theory that there was a circle of Hell Dante forgot, wherein one did nothing but perpetually tick boxes on forms for the restoration of Heritage Buildings everlastingly and await the verdict. Nine times in ten I'm grateful that Presbyterians run everything by committee. The tenth time, I look at the ease with which the Lowbridge Episcopal Church gets things done, and am sorely tempted the other way. As I have sometimes observed to Rosemary, if anything could make me jump ecclesiastical ship for her Anglican upbringing, it is listed building restorations.
I share your worry about Gil. He's doing what he always does when pretending he's not grim and anxious and rushing around at a higher than normal rate of knots. Prescriptions have never been so prompt. Thank goodness for Dulce.
Have you heard about that? It was an excellent lark by Alistair for his daughter's birthday. He came home early on Friday, hat literally in hand. He made a great thing of it being because Cornelia's objections to the hotel going up in the Upper Glen had successfully called the project off. Got everyone wonderfully riled, and Susan especially.
Miss Abby, too. She wanted to know, Susan-like, what they'd live off. Alastair relented and told her to look in his hat. Abby did, and out popped the most undoglike dog I've ever seen. Even Monday was more obviously canine.
It turned out the Upper Glen Lodge was not off. Alastair happened to find this dog-thing under its foundations half-drowned by last week's rain and more than half-starved. He thought it would be an excellent birthday gift for Abby, age four.
He didn't bank on Di or Susan, who took one look at this mongrel and refused to let it past the verandah. It was all over flea and tick bites, and had the widest brown eyes I ever saw. Abby's went even wider confronted by such staunch refusal of her new pet. Gil, always a soft touch for animals and doubly so for Abby, got on the phone to Shirley and came away with a treatment plan.
For the next however-long, Gil and Alastair sat on the verandah steps de-fleaing the dog until it looked halfway presentable. The grandchildren helped, and so did I when I dropped in with birthday card and present. By the time we finished the dog was named Dulcina (Dulce for short), Alastair was drawing up sketches for a doghouse, and the dog's tenure at Ingleside established.
There's a perpetual dent in the best armchair, because of Dulce's many sunny naps thereon. Di is indignant, Susan horrified, and everyone else indulgent.
But their indignation never lasts long, because there's always something else to redirect it towards. Usually the newspaper, which gets worse, not better. In addition to the overflow of Lowbridge news, last week's edition featured weird quantities of information about the Upper Glen. Susan was furious, and couldn't imagine how anyone could confuse the Upper Glen with our Glen.
Apparently, no one had. Susan wrote the appropriate person a truly spectacular letter, and obviously to the right person, because this week's editorial announced that the Upper Glen Herald was subsumed into the Glen St Mary Herald effective immediately. Neither paper has enough news on its own. You can imagine how that went over.
The gathering around the Ingleside dining table is positively conspiratorial. Think Cassius, Brutus and Rome. Betty's husband found what he says is a prime location for setting up shop, and Betty's house hunting around the Glen.
Can you account for the craze for allies that is sweeping the school? Christopher is wild for them and Faith equally tired of extracting them from youthful throats. I'm not sure what version of the game would involve swallowing allies, can you? I'm afraid to ask if this was one of Jem's alternatives to Purple Pill Bets.
Love and blessings,
J.M.
Martyrs' Manse,
Kingsport,
April, 1929
Gil,
As and when Mara emerges from Easter observances, tell her from me she has my everlasting gratitude for corralling Di and Alastair into a Fox Corner Easter. It was wonderful to see you, too, but I fear you know as much as I about how to answer the vexed question of Holy Trinity's listed building Status. Alastair's an expert. He took one look at the guidelines, another at Holy Trinity and declared it Grade A. Phil and I had been swithering over boxes for months. There's still all kinds of paperwork to wade through, but I feel I'm making progress. It asks things like what I plan to do with the church and how I intend to preserve it. Query for Alastair; Can I preserve none of it? Can it be the original building with all new parts? The church in question is egregiously dilapidated. There's a funding application, too, but Phil and Sam will tackle that.
Our children left the other day, and there were tears all round. Sam's little Emma is very attached to your Christopher. But Ellie wanted to have the next baby in her home hospital, and no one blames her. Sam baulks at the return to nursery days, and Ellie apologizes that she can't send any clothes on to Naomi. I don't think there's reason to worry; Una and Li sent more than anyone could reasonably use, according to Naomi.
I hope you returned to find Dulce taking good care of Susan. I don't like your descriptions of her health.
John's news is wildly out of date, by the way. The allies phase is old hat. We're onto ladybirds now. The city is crawling with them this spring; I found a half-dozen on my windowsill the other day and a collection of them in the guttering of the Cowley eavestroughs. They are even in drawers, undeterred by any of our various charms against moths. Cloves, nutmeg, Phil's fail-safe of lavender – nothing works. Faith believes this is one of the unrecorded plagues of Egypt and if it goes on much longer, I may yet agree. The children capture and race them, of all things, across picnic tables. At least, as Faith says, no one is trying to eat them.
Forgive my bolting; This year's Fete Planning Committee began early and they are very insistent I be there.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch,
Jo