The Wycoff Letters #12: To Mr. and Mrs. Russell (Lucy) Wycoff and Family From Fred Schmidt

Fred Schmidt of the Fred and LaVern couple mentioned in earlier missives makes an appearance on the letter scene. With health scare news of course. Presumably about LaVern. It seems she had taken a semi-overdose of Laratrill and Magnesium but not in the common sense of excess. This had eroded her stomach. She was fine to eat as she wished but was very weak as is to be expected. Apparently, nobody in this family ever wrote bearing good news.

June was en route to help out even though "he" (Fred?) was now 86 and could still drive a car. June's daughter and son were 21 and 24 respectively. She, unmarried and thus helpful. Her son had just moved back from Alaska and was married with a child.

The letter was written for Fred, LaVern, Maxine and all. They were living in Murphys, California.

Maxine wrote the second letter so we can assume that she possibly wrote the first. LaVern was at Mark Twain Hospital Room 303 but that had been crossed out.

Maxine again, she seemingly wrote this letter first but then added a prequel to it with the above card. Maxine was 63 then and 42 years married. She was living in Kingman, Arizona. Obviously she was Fred's daughter. She rehashes all that was mentioned in the first letter but adds at the end of this that she was long the family black sheep because she left home at 14 though she stayed on friendly terms.

She goes on to reiterate the deeper details of everything covered in the first letter and hoped to see the Wycoffs again. Meaning that she had either been to Michigan or they had ventured out there. Another low information letter for our local purposes.

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A Dudley Randall Poem in Milestone 2

I bought this Milestone 2 poetry Magazine at a Livonia estate sale this week. Milestone was the literary publication of Wayne (State) University and this second issue dates to 1949. While I don't recognize most of the names, Dudley Randall was both a nationally known poet and the librarian for the Wayne County General Hospital at Eloise via the Wayne County Library System. The poem featured is The Southern Road which was a revised version of the completed poem from 1948 that h as a handful or two of word differences between the two. I don't know if Randall edited the poem for later collected works editions or earlier but this link features it in its likely final form in 2009. Neither version particularly enchants me but the block print in the magazine is an added bonus.

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The Nankin Township Historical Society

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