Spitball Army

March 29, 1943

Dear Andy:

With a couple of dames talking away at “voice-speed” behind me this likely will be a jumbled up mess, but we’ll try and make the best of it…

Got your new address today, and from three sources at once, believe it or not.  Had a card from Bev. this a.m. carrying it – and tonite a card from Sis with the same, and also a letter from Les and Dee carrying the same information.  Had I not gotten all of them, perhaps it wouldn’t have jarred me loose to writing…

Today it seems is an anniversary, is it not.  I wrote Bev. and got the felicitations there in time for the day, but yours will perhaps come two-three, maybe even four weeks late, but better late than never…

Today was really a spring day here, looked at the thermometer once and it was 73 – that’s really something for the 29th of March in our country especially.  We had some fairly decent weather the first part of last week too, when most all of the snow went, and then Saturday morning the ground was all covered again, but that too has gone now…

Bill has bought a house, the Ringner house – you’ll recall it, over there across from the old school grounds, next to Alma Kireeng’s house.  It was practically all built over in 1925, and is modernized, so he made a pretty fair buy, even though he did pay $2500 for it…

I’ve proffered the sum of $1800 for ours – Les seemed to think it all right being it was me that was buying it, and Sis said that she thought we could get together on the sale, but all would have to be heard from…Of course, our house is all new, that is, it was in 1917, but the modern conveniences that are installed, those I have put in myself – the furnace, fixing the basement, etc.  Should there be a sale of the house, there wouldn’t hardly be anything for a division, as the estate owes Sis around $1200, I think, Les a little, you a little, and myself a little.  If there is anything left, it could be applied against the loan on the farm…Bill has a stoker in the house he bought, as well as a bath room, so all in all, he made a good buy…The prices quoted, however, aren’t indicative of values, because a house here in Lake Benton isn’t the investment that it would be in a larger town like in Pipestone or Marshall, to say nothing about a city like Minneapolis.  There it likely would be worth $3500 to $4000.  Here there is no demand, and so necessarily, the price must be less…We haven’t as yet set a definite date, but it will be sometime in June.  We have bought a few things, a stove, etc., but have the majority of the buying yet to do, and we have yet to learn what we can and cannot get…

Ev’s uncle, Mr. Fuglie, at Barrett, died two weeks ago Saturday nite…we were unable to get there for the funeral, held the following Friday, because of bad storms, but we did go up on Saturday, spending Saturday afternoon and Sunday with Mrs. Fuglie and the rest of the folks…

Our basketball teams won District honors this year and won their first game in the regional at New Ulm, losing out to Hutchinson in the finals…St. Paul Washington won the state championship, from Alexandria Saturday eve.  Hutchinson lost their first game, but won their next try in the consolations, but lost out in the finals…Our boys were taken up to see the tourney games…had a big time I guess.  Guess I won’t send you the paper out there, you may get some of them, but I’ll try to write instead.

Ted & Evy.