News Year Day

Dear Family,

Our return from California was uneventful. The wind blew hard the Sunday before we left, but it was almost calm through the desert (which had me worried).
We found your letters and presents waiting us and we thank you very much for your kindness. The new tape recorder was especially appreciated. Rina, in as much as the tape carried a message from David. He was in Guam for 6 hours and spent most of that with the Stobbes.

Mother had a very nice New Years Eve surprise. She had believed that the blood-stone ring, which you all should remember as I gave it to her for her birthday, 43 years ago, had been destroyed in the fire. Yesterday she was cleaning the house. A decorative box w/flower from Avon, that was in the bathroom looked dusty to her. She pulled out the flower to wash it and found that it was hiding her ring.

The Stobbes sent us a long tape, outlining their future plans and/or hopes. They will be coming back to the Main Land in June or July and will probably be assigned to one of the following places; Palmdale, or L.A. or San Francisco in Calif or someplace in Colorado. Frank has not had an operation yet and believes that our prayers helped, but from my experience of rooting on the side lines for Mother, he will have to have one. He has a cyst on his knee bone, which in my opinion will not get better until they operate, scrape, it out and fill the hole with ‘dog’bone, as the doctor jokingly told mother.

Mother talked to Dorthy Jenkins last night. She intimated that there was a letter in the mail with a insurance payment for the things we lost in the fire. We don’t know how much, but what ever it is, we will thank Our Lord and Dorthy’s fighting spirit, as well as John’s gift of the ‘suld barney’. They say they have built a new pumphouse and have a place for a trailer of the ‘care-taker’. The duties of the ‘Care –taker’ probably consist of shooting the deer out of the walnuts and keeping the gates closed. They want us to come back and we will probably go as soon as it warms up, up there. To tell the truth it is probably warmer there that here to-day. It was 30* as I started this letter. When we saw the snow on the Mts Tuesday, we almost turned around and went back to Cal.

Mother joins me in sending our love to each and every one of you. We hope and pray that the new year will be very, very good to you.

Vaya con Dios,
Dad