Dear Children;
While mother is writing to aunt Nellie I will try to pick a letter out of my typewriter, which we got out of storage a week ago last Friday. That was the day we started to move and finished on Saturday, so we have been living in our home here in Weisbaden just over a week. Will send you a copy of the floor plan, which you might not have seen at (son's name) since I doubt whether it arrived until after Xmas.
We received your letter to-day and it is the first one from any of you children since Xmas. I suppose everyone has been so busy over the holidays no one has had time to write.
We sure were busy over the holidays getting ready to move, then moving and attending about 7 or 8 parties of one kind or another. I made up my mind to move and get in this house by the end of the year even if I broke my neck. We could have waited a little longer since the base did not have all the work finished, so mother had workmen in and out all of last week and there still is some to be did. They have to come finish some painting, fix an expansion tank of the hot water system on the third floor and to-day they delivered a clothes closet which they have built to be installed in the down stairs hallway. There wasn't any place to hang coats or hats down stairs so I asked the Major t build one for me, so I suppose the workmen will be here tomorrow to install same, then it will have to be stained or varnished.
We have a nice maid who lives in with us, makes it a lot nicer than one that quite at a specified time. She is a widow women 52 years old. She speaks fairly good english, as she had five years of english in school. Mother does the cooking but Lottie washes the dishes and does all the cleaning. We also have a full time furnace and yard man, who takes care of the furnace, basement, yard, sidewalks, washes windows, washes the car (in fact he goes over the car almost every day) helps the maid to wax the floors.
We haven't received all the furniture we are supposed to get from the base, but it is on back order, and we hope to get it one of these days. Still have a couple medium size rugs, several small rugs, china closet, dressing table, end tables and several misc. items. This house had quite a lot of german furniture here, but most of it was in need of being re-finished, upholstered and repaired. They came and got it all last week and we hope to have it back in a couple weeks. Takes a lot of furniture to equip this big place to make it look like anything. We do have a grand piano, don't you want to come over and play it for us? I have a friend Lt. Col. Himes who was with me in Washington, and he likes to play the Piano, so I have told him this was his place to practice and play. He has been out once since we moved.
Our first guests were Lt. Col. & Mrs. Binford and their two children from Paris who spent a couple days on leave here. We took them out for dinner the Saturday that we moved, then we came out to the house and looked at the pictures we took on our trip to France. Col. Binford made all our reservations for us when we went to Paris and we were out to their apartment one evening for dinner while we were there. We worked to-gether in Washington for a couple of years.
We just finished listening to President Truman message to Congress. Our AN network picked it up by short wave and it came thru very clear and distinct. Some times the pickup isn't to good, however I heard several football games this last fall, but not the Ohio State*Michigan game which was to have been picked up. We didn't know until the next day that such a storm had hit the midwest.
Our AN network has very good programs and most all the stateside big programs which are sent over on tape recordings without all your commercial adverstising. Have our Bendix here in the small living room where mother & I do most of our living, also one radio in the kitchen and one in our bedroom. This house had 220 Volt current but I got a transformer from the Erding Depot and got the base here to install it so we could use all our electric appliances and radio.
We are so glad to hear that all of you got to-gether for Xmas even if it was for such a short time. Sure the children are getting older and should play and get along to-gether, however I expect if they were to-gether for several days they might have one or two squabbles. Glad you all like the Xmas and hope you all get a lot of pleasure out of them. Can't understand why your clocks did not have any instructions packed with them. It isn't any trouble to put the anniversary clock to-gether. Take the four balls and hang it on the thin wire which has a small cross bar on the end, see that the clock is level and if it is the pendulum should hang in the center of the small cup under neath but not touching. To adjust the clock from slow or fast you will see there is small wheel in the four bells which hasmarked "S" or "F", turn as shown by the arrow. Glad you like that beer stein . . . You should be over here the wine and champaign is fine. I have several bottles in the refrigerator, don't you want to have a couple of glasses with me? Ha! Ha!.
We went with several from my office and Margarett and Paul (from Dayton) to the officers club for New Years eve. We all had a nice time and came home at 2 A.M. Had to wake Mother up at 10:30 since she still was asleep which is something for her to do. Then New Years day we attend the open house that Gen. Cannon and Ge. Uptegrove held at the club from 6 to 8:30. It was very nice.
I have run out of news, the next time I am going to put a piece of carbon paper in and send you all the same letter. Hope to hear soon again from you. We send all our love to our children.
Mother and Dad
18 January, 1951
Dearest Children:
Well here comes from the Johnson's house in Weisbaden to all ofyou. The first part will be in general to all of you, and will close in answering each of your individual letters.
Received one to-day from . . . and also one from . . . giving the latest information on . . . , was home from the hospital. We are hoping she keeps improving. Also had a letter from Genevieve a few days ago giving all the low down on the Steffen family.
Was so glad that all ofyou had such a nice Xmas and were able to get to-gether at . . . , even if it was ashort visit.
We are fine and getting the house in a little better shape to enjoy home life. Oh, we are still bothered with workmen fixing something or another. Also most every day they deliver another piece of furniture, or bring back a piece they took to repair. Maybe in a month or so we will have all the items. They finally delivered a dressing table w/stool for mother bedroom. Also delivered the two sets of dishes we ordered about two weeks ago. Got the table cloths with napkins, however the table cloths in about three feet short for the table if we would extend it to full length, guess we will have to hold our dinner guest down so we can use the shorter table, Ha! Ha! When the base receives some longer cloths I guess we will be furnished with one.
Still waiting for the drapery material to come in. Have the rods installed, but all the material they had in stock was cheeses looking material so mother wouldn't have the material that was available. They expect another shipment in fairly soon.
We had a wire in from Washington the first of the week that indicated that this Hq. Might have to send another budget team back to Washington. Gen.Crawford advised me that if the team had to go back I would be on the team. The wire said we would be advised later, but so far haven't had another word. So don't be surprised if you hear my voice one of these nights calling you on the phone. Do hope if I do have to make the trip that I can get another weekend to run out to Dayton and that all of you can arrange to come to Genevieve's.
The first part of this week was very nice and all our snow had melted. Yesterday it started to snow but finally turn to rain. To-day it rained real hard, but once this afternoon the sun was shining. When I left the office this evening it was raining again, but as I look out the front window it looks like it has stopped.
The first of this week I had a re-arranging of my office, since I put in to effect a new organization. I didn't think the old setup was very efficient. To much lost motion and tomany people were reporting direct to me. With an organization with 55 people I felt that five chiefs were sufficient, so I now have five divisions chiefs who I hold responsility for the work.
To-morrow evening we are invited out for dinner by Maj. Marshall who is one of my division chiefs. Saturday evening Paul and Margarett are having a party, so we have to attend that. You really don't have much spare time over here, nothing like we thought it would be.
. . . we sure were glad to receive you nice long letter. Mother has me typing letters left and right. Still make a lot of mistakes since it has been quite some time since I have did any typing, but maybe the letters can be read.
Do you handle any recruiting for the Army, or just for the Air Force? I notice in thenews accounts that the Air Force is not having any trouble in obtaining all the recruits they can handle. Maybe they will step the program up when they get the new reception center going full blast.
Yes, Mother has started to cut the dress out, but she says there are not enough hours in a day, with all the interruptions she has from some one delivering another piece of furniture, or some workmen coming to fix something. They are still delivering things, maybe in a month or so we will have all that we ordered.
Glad the children have gotten their new glasses.
I know I must be nuts, been looking all the place trying to locate that set of the house plans . That set was for Mother Clawson, so . . . write Grandmother a letter and send that second set of plans to her.
Gen. Cannon leaves for the States. Monday to take over the command of the Tactical Air Command at Langley Field. Last week two other Generals from this command left for the States. Gen. Norstad our new C.G. is due in next week, part of his advance staff has allready arrived. We have been working on a lot of new plans, just what they mean we don't quite know, maybe when the new C.G. arrives we will get more information onjust how we fit into the new setup. Don't know whether we will stay here or be transferred to some other location.
Someone from Wright Field almost every week drops into this Hq. To-day Gen.Hicks cam in. He received his star last week.
Well I guess I had better sign this off. We send all our love. Kiss the children for us. We miss all of you so much.
(signature) Dad
Dad and Mother.
P.S. Will send a new spring for the clock. Glad to know you got a good deal on the old sweeper, we didn't care what you did withit. Go to a photo shop and buy a small bottle of film glue. Scrape both end and overlap the film about ¼ in. and hold until dry, only takes a minute or two.
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