June 30, 1943

Spruce Apartments

Apartment B-5

Kennett Square, Pennsylvania

June 30, 1943

Dear "Gang,"

By the time you get this letter I hope Florida and I are moved to Kennett Square. We finally succeeded in finding a very nice apartment there, except that it is unfurnished. The apartment is on the second floor. It has four rooms and a kitchen and bathroom, with a nice big closet in each bedroom, a small closet (or maybe it's two) in the hall, and a very large linen and storage closet in the hall. The kitchen has a stove and refrigerator in it. The apartment faces west, I think, but I can't be certain because all my directions are all turned around. The living room has large triple windows on two sides of it. The dining room and living room are opening into one another with just part partitions. It surely is nice. It seems to be very cool.

Kennett Square is fourteen miles from Wilmington. It is just a small town, but is very pretty. I like what I have seen of it much better than Wilmington. There are some of the prettiest farms I've ever seen between here and Kennett Square. The country is very hilly, some of the hills being almost small mountains.

Florida and I have surely had a time finding furniture. She and Walter had decided to not buy furniture until they had saved enough to pay cash for it, but it was (and is) impossible to find a furnished apartment anywhere around here unless it's a sublet for the summer, and they didn't want that. But what we have gotten is very pretty and nice. As soon as the furniture can be delivered no we'll move. We had been in hopes of being moved before this but we were told yesterday that the furniture can't be delivered until we have Walter's signature. That makes me so mad, because here all this time (two weeks) they've been talking to us that everything is all right and that the furniture would be delivered immediately, then here when we now want the furniture delivered (we had to wait for the people to get out of the apartment) they tell us that. And Walter will be here Saturday or Sunday, but only for a few days because he has to go back later to take his exams. The man that he is working under is mad and won't let him off on the first (tomorrow) as was first planned.

I don't think when I wrote to you last I had gotten my suitcases. They came after three weeks, and one of them had been opened, but thank goodness nothing is missing, so far as I can tell. One lock is broken and everything on the inside was surely a mess. You know how I keep little things in boxes, all the little boxes had been opened. The contents poured out, and the boxes closed again. The only thing that seems to be hurt except the lock is that they (or he) broke my blue necklace so that I can't fix it. Some of the straps, etc., around the dresses (I was using La Dora's wardrobe case) had been undone. I don't think it was for an inspection because it wasn't marked inspected.

I've been making Junior a little sack. I'll embroidery it and bind it with a ribbon tomorrow. I'd have finished it tonight except that I want to wash it after embroidering it before putting the ribbon on.

I surely do hate to see Walter have to come here to stay a night or two, because I'm afraid he and Mrs. WIll are going to disagree. I'm afraid she's going to bring up how wonderful Germany and Hitler are simply because she knows he is Polish. We are going to have to just stay away from here as much as possible. Florida says that we'll have dinner out- that she and Walter will meet me up town right after church, then after dinner we'll do something, even if it's nothing but get the papers and go to some park and read them. Personally, Florida and I will both be glad to get away so that we don't have to hear the woman's fussing voice- she fusses at Mr. Will all the time.

Friday Mrs. Will, Florida, and I went to Philadelphia on a boat. The trip takes about three hours each way by boat, and twenty minutes by train, but the boat trip is much the cheaper. The big joke of the whole thing is that I had to come all the way from Flordia to Pennsylvania to get a tan. The trip was lots of fun, but very different from our boat rides home. I want to take the trip on some moonlight night. I think it would be pretty. I wish you could all go with me. I think you would like it.

La Dora is working in the sore at the sawmill this summer. She seems to be enjoying it, but she seems surely be tired out when she gets home. She works from eight to eight- pretty long hours. The little rascal- the dear- has already spent her first week's pay to get each os us a raincoat and umbrella. It's sweet for her, but I wish she hadn't spent it on me.

When we get in our own apartment and get settled I'm going to try to get some fruit and put up a lot of jelly and preserves. If it turns out pretty good I may even take some to school next year.

Tomorrow I have to wash, then iron Saturday, so as to have everything clean and ironed when we move because Florida doesn't have an iron, and I don't know how we're coming out.

Love,

Fannie Evelyn