Authors: Anne Ylvisaker
Did you take the electric bill downtown? I do miss running errands for you. I like being your helper. Aunt Jaye finds me a great help here. I am now in charge of all the dusting, turning the crank on the clothes wringer, drying the dishes, and sweeping the porch. That last one will start when the snow melts. I am enclosing a sample of my schoolwork. Could you have Ian bring it in to Miss Lockey? I want her to see that I am keeping up so I’ll fit right in when I come back. By the way, Mama, when will that be? Just so Miss Lockey can have my desk ready.
Aunt Jaye is calling. I am always ready to help the first time she asks. When I come home, I will come the first time you call, too.
Your obedient daughter,
Isabelle
March 11, 1944
Dear Irma and Inez,
We could surprise Mama and be home for Easter. Invite Uncle Edgar for dinner and maybe he’ll drive our bags and us in his truck. We should be living on Palace by now. If we don’t get there soon, maybe Mama will get used to life without us. You two could help her after school at the houses she cleans and I could watch Ida and Ian and we’d be a family again. Please respond quickly.
From,
Isabelle
March 11, 1944
Dear Papa,
My day of punishment is almost at an end. I did get to eat supper downstairs. But things have changed. Uncle Bernard and Aunt Jaye watch me like a bug in Ian’s pickle jar. Every time I think I will fly like my old self, I smack my face into the glass.
At dinner, after he finished his boiled potatoes, Uncle Bernard wiped his wide chin and said, “So, Miss Isabelle, how did you spend your hours today?”
I thought about it and told him the part I knew he would most approve of. “I read my Bible quite a lot.”
Aunt Jaye snorted. I heard her!
“Isabelle,” U. B. said, “this is not a hard question. I highly doubt you were up there reading the Bible. Let’s start again. How did you spend your hours today?”
Why didn’t they believe me, Papa?
“I read about Jesus going to the temple and his parents couldn’t find him but he was only talking to the older people there and I was thinking that was kind of like me being here with you, and then his parents came and took him home and soon my mother will come and take me home.”
Well, that made him mad. He went on about blasphemy and me comparing myself to Jesus (which I wasn’t), and them being old people was offensive and wasn’t I just the ungrateful one and didn’t I learn anything at all being in my room all day. My head boiled, I was so mad. But I did not do a thing to show it. You would have been proud. I just sat there eating my horrid peas. Every one I smooshed in my mouth I imagined was U. B.’s head. After a bit of considering he asked Aunt Jaye what she had planned for my Sabbath. Papa, it includes embroidery! I am supposed to embroider dishtowels for the newcomer baskets. For one thing, how many people can be moving to this town with a war on, and for another, I hate embroidery. It is slow and dull and I’ll probably doze off and the needle will pierce my eye when my head falls. Life can be complicated. It makes me tired.
Good night.
Isabelle
March 17, 1944
Dear Irma and Inez,
1. I got your letter today after school. Charlie and Stuart are gone? I was hoping the war would be over before they would have to go.
2. How could you possibly
like
life on the farm? Pigs live there and cows, and I know how you both hate bad smells. You say you feel so grown-up running everything and not having to answer to Mother, but she is our mother! We are a family! I am checking your handwriting very closely because I think maybe Uncle Edgar wrote this because he wants you to stay and take care of the house for him. What about your friends? What about school? What about ME?!
3. If you aren’t here on Good Friday, I will go home without you.
With sincere disappointment and disgust,
Isabelle
March 22, 1944
To Irma and Inez:
I will so go by myself. Miss Jensen has a map at school. Every inch is ten miles. Zumbrota is six inches from the middle of St. Paul, which is about where Palace must be. Miss Jensen says people usually walk between three and four miles an hour, though she didn’t care to time me. So it would be 25 hours at least to get home. Can you think of your small sister (well, her legs are pretty long and her arms do hang down low, but still . . .) walking all of Good Friday and into Holy Saturday? All by herself? And can you imagine her arriving home to her mother’s rhubarb pie and eating her sisters’ pieces because her sisters aren’t there?
Have you mentioned anything to Uncle Edgar yet?
Waiting for a reply,
Isabelle
March 23, 1944
To Irma and Inez,
I was going to give you a day or two to write and a day for the mail to make the short trip from Uncle Edgar’s farm, but I must move ahead with my planning in case I cannot depend on you. I found out that we could take the bus home. It leaves Fridays at 2:00 in the afternoon. It stops in downtown St. Paul and I know how to get the streetcar from there. I am going to be on that bus on Good Friday. Are you? A few things need to be worked out before then:
1. Money. Do you have any? It would be $1.50 for one of us (me), $3.00 for two, and $4.50 for the entire family to be reunited. (If you can’t agree, at least one of you could come. Inez, remember what you told me once about Irma bossing you? Don’t fight because I told.) A bargain when you think about it. I have 63¢. But don’t worry. I will come up with my own fare.
2. Secrecy. I am assuming that the uncles would not agree to us going home. It is Lent, and though it is always wrong to lie, I am even more nervous about it during Lent. So let’s don’t lie, exactly. I’m thinking that if I don’t say to Aunt Jaye and Uncle Bernard I am going or am not going, it is not a lie to just go.
3. Luggage. I’ll have to leave as if for a walk to the library, so I think I will only be taking my book bag.
4. Have you thought about how you will get from the farm to town that day? This is your problem to solve, along with luggage and money.
That is all for now.
Isabelle
March 27, 1944
Dear Papa,
I’m not so fond of school as I used to be. Yesterday LeRoy Pence found out his dad was killed in the war. He didn’t come to school today. Miss Jensen told us about it. No one likes LeRoy Pence much because he doesn’t seem to like anyone else much, except that big dog that scared the socks off me when it followed him to school on Valentine’s Day. But now his father is dead. I never met him, of course, but when Miss Jensen told us about it, I started to cry. In class! I was so mad at myself. That made me cry harder. Eleanor said on the way home that I shouldn’t feel bad because LeRoy’s dad was mean anyhow and nobody liked him much. But I do feel bad. Bad all over again. Now in a couple weeks Jesus is going to die again, too.
Well, as mother says, enough is enough. So now I am going to make a list for my trip home. I am planning it with Irma and Inez, but have not heard back from them. I think I’ll close with a picture this time. It will be you and me building the birdhouse we made for Mama when I was six. We both hammered our thumbs and you pretended to cry as loud as me. So turn over the page. Or can you see through paper?
Love,
Isabelle
March 28, 1944
Dear Papa,
Only ten days until I go home. I opened my window when I woke up and saw a spot of ground through the snow. I think there will be an early spring.
LeRoy Pence came back to school. He didn’t pull my hair even though I stopped right in front of him in line to give him the chance.
I looked around my classroom today at the people I won’t be seeing anymore. There will be an even number again for kickball.
I wonder what Mama will say when she sees me?
Love,
Isabelle
Nine Days
Dear Papa,
Just waiting.
Isabelle
Seven Days
Dear Papa,
Aunt Jaye hugged me today. She told me how happy it makes her to hear my feet pounding down the stairs in the morning.
“I’m so proud of your work for the newcomer baskets. Your embroidery is quite fine,” she said.
Mama would like a towel, I think. I will stitch all our names on it. Even yours.
Yours in stitches (ha-ha!),
Isabelle
April 1, 1944
Dear Papa,
I am invited to Eleanor’s birthday party. She invited every girl in our class. There is going to be a real cake. Her mother’s been saving sugar. Aunt Jaye is making me a new dress, but I won’t be wearing it. The party is after Easter and I won’t be here. But I stood on the stool anyhow and let A. J. measure me.
Your much-taller-than-last-year girl,
Isabelle
Five days left
Dear Papa,
I took three dollars out of Aunt Jaye’s sewing box. She thinks thieves won’t find her money there if they break in. I saw it under the spools when she measured me. I wonder if Uncle Bernard knows that she does not support his bank with her money. I need money for the bus. I am praying for forgiveness, but I am not giving the money back. If you see Jesus around there, will you please explain? I know he’s busy with Holy Week and such and probably didn’t even notice, but I’d like to clear this up right away.
I went to Eleanor’s after school today. She has this catalog full of clothes and toys. She gets to pick birthday presents out of it. She had thirteen things circled! There was a set of doll dishes I sure would like to get for Ida. I can’t wait to comb her curly yellow hair and fold her little white socks.
Love,
Isabelle
April 2, 1944
Dear Mrs. Jordahl,
Thank you for sending Jimmy’s pictures. Please ask him about the one with the family on it. It looks like Ida and Ian and my mom. But there is a man in the picture. Who is it?
Please reply quickly.
Your neighbor,
Isabelle
April 2, 1944
Dear Irma and Inez,
All right. I’ll go alone.
Isabelle
April 3, 1944
Dear Aunt Izzy,
Thank you for the postcard. Do you really have flowers in the winter? I would love to taste an orange from your yard.
You can send any future mail to 1234 Palace. I am going home on Friday. It is kind of a surprise.
Why does your trip out here depend on the war? There’s been war since I can remember. We did see you that once. Was there war then? Why did you move so far away from the place you grew up? Did you travel to California by yourself? Can you tell me about my mama and my papa from the old days? I’ll send along an extra sheet of paper for your reply. I have a lot of paper left here and I won’t be able to take it all with me. Maybe Aunt Jaye will take up writing after I leave.
Love,
Isabelle
Three days until home
Dear Papa,
Today when Aunt Jaye hugged me, I hugged her back. Uncle Bernard doesn’t hug or I might have almost hugged him, too. I am so excited to go home that I feel like being good. I helped clean up the dishes without a fuss. I didn’t hiss at the squirrels looking for nuts in the backyard. I even picked up Sue Joan Warick’s pencil when it dropped on the floor. She may remember that act of charity next week and feel sad that she didn’t get to know me better. “Where did that Isabelle girl go?” she’ll ask Miss Jensen. “I was going to invite her to my birthday party.” I’ll be somewhere better than a party.
This room on the third floor has been nice. But I like the closeness of the walls in my room on Palace and little Ida breathing loud through her mouth all night long.
Eleanor has been over here quite often. When Aunt Jaye feels the need to have a girl around again, she can call on Eleanor.
Good night, Papa!
Isabelle
Maundy Thursday
Dear Irma and Inez,
Was this our Last Supper tonight, like in the Bible?
When you came with Uncle Edgar for dinner today, I thought you were in on my plan. I waited up until . . . well, until now, and it is 10:32
P.M.
I snuck downstairs and unlocked the back door because I thought you didn’t really leave with U. E. but were going to creep back and join me. I thought we’d have the whole ride home to talk so I didn’t tell you about everything during dinner.
What has happened to the two of you? I don’t know you anymore.
Thank you for the package. I don’t know if I can get everything in my book bag, though. I will at least bring the cloth doll you made for Ida and the cap for Ian. The pencil for me will fit for sure.
You didn’t tell Uncle Edgar, did you?
Goodbye (forever?),
Isabelle
The Day Before Home, 11:00
P.M.
Dear Papa,
Irma and Inez are one big disappointment. They were here today. But even though they know Mama would feel better having us home, they are not going back with me. I know you are their father so you have to love them, but you must be mad at least for them leaving me alone like this.
I am too nervous and excited and scared and happy to sleep. There are three books here I have not read yet. I think I’ll read all night.
I’ll write tomorrow from HOME!
Love and kisses and hugs,
Isabelle
Good Friday
Dear Aunt Jaye and Uncle Bernard,
If you are reading this note, then you are standing in my room. Don’t have any worries about me. I am fine. I am on my way home, where I should have been all along. Mama needs all her children around her when her spirits are low.
I am very grateful for everything you have done for me. I especially thank you for all the paper.
Aunt Jaye, I’m sorry I won’t be able to wear the dress you already started. Bess Hart in my class has never ever had a new dress and she is about my size. Maybe she could wear it to Eleanor’s party.
Uncle Bernard, thank you for the extra money it took to feed me. I do eat a lot, like you said. I am sorry I was mouthy about it when you brought it up. I wish you and your bank a lot of success.