At last! A letter from Dart, with an enthusiastic report of a surprise visit from his parents. Apparently, the Navy had notified them that he was quite ill, and they had hopped on a night train for the 400 mile trip to Great Lakes Naval Hospital. Family lore has it that the Navy had intimated to Dart Sr. and Helen that their son might not pull through. That’s a reminder of how serious pneumonia was in the early days of antibiotics!

Anyway, he is thrilled to have had a nice long visit, with the promise of another one tomorrow. He was shocked by his father’s hair, which had just started to get some gray when Dart left home on Nov. 3. Today, his entire head is silver. I remember my grandfather as a frail man. Family stories paint the picture of a man prone to depression and worry. I wonder if the thought of his eldest son going off to war had caused his hair to turn so quickly.

Even in Dart’s fragile state of health, he commiserates with Dot about her cold. He’s happy to learn that she enjoyed her dinner at Miss Hutton’s more than she’d thought she would. This sage 20-year old says “Often you find that school teachers have souls, whether they act like it in class or not.”

His only answer to her question about when he might get to come home is strictly a guess. If they keep him in the hospital another two weeks, he could be home sometime in the middle of March.

He guesses that she’s not as bad a cook as she would lead him to believe, and suggests that perhaps she’s just trying to scare him off.

Here’s a short letter from Dot, rather sullen for her. She opens with a very sweet paragraph, but then begins to talk about what a rough week she’s having. No mail from anyone, arduous Glee Club rehearsals, complete failure in creating a clever graduation display for the retail store, a mean-spirited lecture from the senior English teacher. There’s not much going right for her.

She signs off quickly, sending her love, as always.