I've typed these just as they were written, in the order the Robin went around. I left out a few things that are nobody's business (Aunt Lila's doctor's name, and Uncle Conrad's golf scores, at his request). There were pictures in the packet, but I don't have a scanner, so you'll have to take the sisters' word for how everybody looks. — Diane

Jump to: Henrietta · Barbara · Jean · Lila · Sybil

Henrietta
North Dakota  ~  Monday, June 7, 1999

Dear Sisters,

The Robin came back to me on Saturday after eleven weeks, which is too long, and I won't say who, but she lives in Florida and she has a new knee, so she is forgiven this once. I talked to Sybil on the telephone and she says the operation went fine and Lila is already complaining about the food, which means she is herself.

We have had nothing but rain. Calvin has three hundred acres still to put in and it is June. He goes out every morning and looks at the field and comes back in and has another cup of coffee. His father did the same, and I told him so, and he did not think it was as funny as I did.

The fall bazaar is the second Saturday in October and Opal Hanson has put me in charge of the lefse again. That makes twenty-two years. I said I was getting too old to stand at a griddle for three days and Opal said nonsense, and that was the end of the discussion. If any of you would like to send a dollar for the building fund, the church roof would thank you. If you would like to come and roll lefse, I would thank you more.

Callie had her piano recital at the school and played a piece by Mozart without one mistake that I could hear. She is nine. She curtsied at the end, which nobody taught her. Grant says she gets that from our side.

Now Jean. Your last letter was typed on the computer, and it looked like it came from the electric company. I know Ryan set it up for you and I know you are proud, and I am glad for you. But the rule says your own hand. A machine is not a hand. We will discuss it.

Barbara, happy anniversary on the tenth. Fifty-five years. I remember the dress. I remember Conrad's ears, too, but I won't bring that up.

It is eight years this month since Russell died. I still set out two cups some mornings. I don't mind it as much as I used to.

Birthdays before the Robin comes round again: Barbara's Beverly, June 22. Lila's Jim, July 4 (still a patriot). Sybil's Diane, August 12 (fifty, think of it). Our Grant, August 30.

Your sister,
Henrietta

Barbara
Mesa, Arizona  ~  Friday, June 18, 1999

Dear Girls,

It is a hundred and eleven degrees, and I am writing this at the kitchen table with the cooler running and a wet dishtowel on my neck, so forgive the handwriting. Everyone here says it is a dry heat. So is an oven.

Thank you, Henrietta, for remembering the anniversary. Fifty-five years on the tenth. We went to dinner at the steak house where we went for our fiftieth, and the waiter brought a candle in a dish of ice cream and all the people at the next table sang. Conrad pretended to be embarrassed. He wasn't. And I will thank you to leave his ears out of it. They were perfectly good ears in 1944, and he could hear me just fine with them, when he wanted to.

Damon graduated from Arizona State in May. Engineering. Beverly cried through the whole thing, and so did I, and so did Conrad, though he says it was the sun. Damon starts a job in Phoenix in August and says he will live at home "for a little while," and Beverly has already moved her sewing machine out of his old room.

Little Alonzo is talking now. He says "hot" for everything, which in Mesa is about right. Beverly sent a picture, which I am putting in the packet, so please send it back, Sybil, you are the last one and you always forget.

Conrad has filled the garage with jugs of water for this Y2K business. Forty-two jugs. I asked him what we will do with forty-two jugs of water on January first, and he said, "Drink them," which I suppose is an answer.

Lila, how is the knee? Your last letter was one page, and I know you had the operation coming, but one page, Lila. I counted.

Jean, I think the typing is lovely and I can finally read your letter without my magnifying glass. Henrietta, you had carbon paper thrown at me in 1958 and I have never forgotten it.

Birthdays: Jean's Gail, July 9. Henrietta's Calvin, July 21. Little Alonzo, two years old, August 3. And Diane's fiftieth. Fifty! Where did it go?

Love to you all,
Barbara

Jean
Spokane, Washington  ~  Thursday, July 1, 1999

Dear Sisters,

Yes, I have typed it again, and before Henrietta says one word, let me explain.

This is not a carbon copy. A carbon copy is when you write one letter and keep a copy and send the same thing to everybody, which is what Barbara wanted to do in 1958, and which I voted against. This is one letter, written to all of you, in my own words, printed one time, on one sheet of paper. It is an original. It just happens to be neat. My hand shakes now in the mornings, which you all know, and Ryan said, Grandma, why don't you let the computer hold the pen for you. I thought that was a kind way to put it.

Ryan is nineteen and spent the whole of Memorial Day weekend in my sewing room with the computer in pieces on the floor. Now it sits where my Singer used to, and the Singer is in the closet, and I don't miss it as much as I thought I would. I can write a letter and fix my mistakes without the bottle of white-out. I can make the letters big. I have an e-mail address, which Ryan says is the same as a mailbox, only you don't have to walk to the end of the driveway. I have written to Diane on it twice. She wrote back the same day both times, which still astonishes me.

I won't put my e-mail address in the Robin. The Robin is for paper. On that, Henrietta and I agree.

Gail is well and working too hard. The roses are better than they have been in years. Book club is reading a very long novel about Russia again, and I am the only one who finished the last one, so I am to lead the discussion, which serves me right.

Henrietta, I would come roll lefse if I could, and you know it. Barbara, happy anniversary, and give Conrad's ears my regards. Lila, I hope you are walking.

Birthdays: I printed them in big type so nobody can say she didn't see them. GAIL, JULY 9. CALVIN, JULY 21. DIANE, AUGUST 12. GRANT, AUGUST 30.

Your loving sister,
Jean
(signed in my own hand, Henrietta, see the bottom)

[She did. Her signature is in blue ink under the typing, a little wobbly, very large. — D.]

Lila
Florida  ~  Wednesday, July 14, 1999

Dear Henrietta, Barbara, Jean and Syb,

Yes, I am two days late. I have a doctor's note. I have a whole stack of doctor's notes. I will send one to each of you if you like.

The knee. Since everybody asked. They put it in on June 2, and it is made of metal and some kind of plastic, and Jim says when we fly up for Keri's wedding I will set off the bells at the airport and they will take me in a back room. I told him I have waited seventy-four years for somebody to think I was dangerous. Barbara, you can tell me I'm terrible. I know.

The first week was the worst week of my life, and I have had five children. The physical therapy girl comes three times a week and makes me bend it, and she smiles the whole time, and I have decided she is a Communist. But I walked to the mailbox Monday with the cane, and back, and I cried a little, and then I sat on the porch with a glass of iced tea and felt like the Queen of England. So it's working.

Jim has been a saint. He has also learned to make exactly one supper, which is spaghetti, and we have had it eleven times. I have not said a word. Yes I have.

Keri is getting married October 16 in Tampa, to a nice boy who is a pharmacist, so at least somebody in the family will know what all my pills are for. Mark is beside himself. You are all invited, and I mean it, and I know none of you will come, and I love you anyway.

Hurricane season again. Jim has the plywood cut and stacked in the garage with the windows marked on each piece. He did it before the knee, bless him, because he knew he would be doing everything himself after.

Barbara, this letter is three pages. Count them.

Jean, I think the computer is wonderful. Henrietta, leave her alone.

Birthdays: Diane, August 12 — FIFTY. Syb, tell her welcome to the club, they give you a card in the mail and it's all downhill from there. Grant, August 30. My Mark, September 9. And me, September 19, in case anyone was wondering, which you weren't.

Love,
Lila
(the funny one, Mother always said)

Sybil
Moorhead, Minnesota  ~  Wednesday, July 28, 1999

Dear Sisters,

The Robin came on Monday, and I sat down on the back step and read it right there, and Kermit had to come out and tell me the sprinkler was running on the sidewalk.

First the news. The great-grandbaby came on May 20, Anthony's boy, Luke, eight pounds and some ounces and the loudest baby in Clay County. Diane is a grandmother. Diane cried at the hospital, and then she went right back to work and balanced the school district's books, because that is how she is made. I am a great-grandmother, which I did not plan on, and which I like very much.

The garden is coming. Tomatoes are green yet but the beans are on and the zucchini has gone wild again. I put six zucchini on the neighbors' porch last night after dark, and Kermit says if they see me I'll have to move. He has been up at the lake two weekends and brought home walleye both times, and he is unbearable about it.

Now about the computer. Diane has asked each of you on the telephone about putting the Robin into her computer, for the grandchildren, and you have all said yes, Henrietta with conditions. Henrietta, I have read the conditions to Diane, and she says she can spell lefse. I said I would believe it when I saw it.

Jean, I don't care if it is typed. I care that it comes.

Lila, I am so proud of you walking to the mailbox that I read it out loud to Kermit. He said, "That's a long driveway, too." It is.

Barbara, I am sending back Alonzo's picture. See, I remembered. It's in with your letter.

It was two years ago this spring we sandbagged this yard, and the river is down where it belongs and the cottonwoods are green. Every time this envelope comes through my door, I think of Mother's kitchen table and the five of us at it, and I want to say thank you to Henrietta, for the idea, and to all of you, for keeping it up. Forty-one years. Not one birthday missed.

Birthdays: Diane, August 12. Grant, August 30. Mark, September 9. Lila, September 19 (we were wondering, Lila). And Luke will be four months old on the twentieth of September, which isn't a birthday, but I wanted to say it.

Your baby sister,
Sybil

The Robin went back out to Aunt Henrietta on July 29 and, as I type this, it's probably in Arizona, if Aunt Henrietta kept to the two weeks, which she always does. I'll put up the fall packet when it comes through. — Diane