P. H. and Bessie Morgan Rex - letters written October 4, 1936.

Color plate from Ernst Haeckle’s Kuntsformen der Natur from Wikipedia

[The letter is not dated. Written with a pen at the top is:] Didn’t see any of the [Clara] Burdetts in Evanston. They had gone to Kemmerer.

My dear boy,

I have searched the house down for the pen and can’t find. I know I wont have a better chance to write than now, so here goes, with a pencil.

I have been going in high the last few days & I am all in today. We had the National Committee woman for the Rep. party & another woman here overnight. Mrs. Cannon the Com. Woman had a son who had been on a mission in Germany with Pres. Howell. Tonight is choir practice. We sing in Evanston Sunday night. Come & sing with us. Going up tomorrow for R. Society conference. Just received a letter from Winnie. She thot your last letter was rather blue. Keep a stiff upper lip my dear. Hope you have received your money, all right. I worry about you & your living. How is the eating down there.

It is cloudy & stormy looking here. The frost took nearly every thing the first of the month. The cold winds are blowing & fall is here for

Sure.

Daddy is working down at the corner. They are bolting the steel girders together now.

Morgan likes school very much. You know they are putting up a shop room. Maeser likes Glen R.  for a teacher, and Flora—well of course all girls like school.

Goodness, this is the last sheet of paper I have. I must send off with Helen’s tho’. Do your ears burn. We talk about you a lot. Maybe I can tell you a secret. It will be over by the time you get this letter. Don  [Donald Smith Rex 1913-1996] & Mabel [Mabel Sarah Cook 1913-1989]are going to be married sometime this next month. At any rate he came in to coax Helen into making it a double. Of course Helen declined. Glenn is leaving for California.

Aoh the wind is howling & it looks like snow. I always think of the night you left when it snows. I hope your homecoming will be much more pleasant. Well dearie I must close this. Take good care of yourself. Keep smiling. [Now writing with a pen.] Have been politicing [sic. politicking] since I wrote this. Will write soon. Love & kisses & the Lords blessings on you my dear.

Lovingly, Mother

Oct 4, 1936.

My Dear Boy.

Another week has passed but we did not receive a letter from you and we were somewhat disappointed as we look forward to a letter from South America to hear how you are in health and your labors. We are just fine.  Mother looks and feels lots better than she has for two years.

Morgan is here Building another plane he is getting to be quite clever at it, he has several around now.

We have listened to General Conference today over the radio we heard Myron Hillston, conference President speak he has just come home and he surely speaks Swedish and is 75 years old.

Ruby Rex [1907-1999] told mother tonite that there is a boy from Midvale coming down to Brazil on a mission so maybe we will be able to see him before he leaves and send a message of some kind.

We are working on the amusement hall we have the floor down the steel girders up and masons are laying the Brick it sure is going to be some Building if we can just get the money to put it through so we can have it for winter.

Do you ever see anything from the U. S. such as newspapers or manufactured goods. They would cost more than home made articles. It is getting nearly bedtime so I think we had better close for this time. I am afraid I am more or less of a failure in the art of letter writing.

I was in Evanston the other day and a chance to talk to Clara. I called for her father she answered the phone and wanted me to come up and have dinner with them but I was in working clothes and was with Ray Johnson so we were after some kind of a hoist to lift the steel girders that span the Building. I guess you would have enjoyed it very much but I got quite a thrill today when the Mission Presidents were telling of the good the boys were doing in the world. To think I had a boy worthy of being called to represent such a Church as we are members of, as there is no doubt it is the true Church of God, or it would never may [make] the gains it has and stood the test of more than a hundred years of the hardest kind of a test. Do you have any converts down there. I haven’t heard you say anything of Baptisms.

Mrs. Rachel Wilson asked me if you ever saw any orchids, if you do could you get some and press them and send them home. I don’t suppose you could send any seed up here, if you can please try it. As you know she is quite a flower lover. I will close asking God to continue his choicest  Blessing on you as ever. Loving, your Dad.
        P. H. Rex

Note: I don’t know what the radio the Rexes gathered around to listen to General Conference on looked like in 1936. I’m convinced that this 1933  Sunday Evening broadcast is the kind of program Grandma Bessie would have enjoyed listening to. And the radio pictured reminded me of their home.