[This letter is written on small, skinny notebook paper, plus a sheet of sale or order paper. Also, Grandma had sketched a picture of a man sitting across from her who had fallen asleep, along with the note "The gentle man across the aisle who has gone sound asleep." Very good artistry!]
Dearest Larry,
I've just heard some news that's stunned me so that I've got to write now, -- I can't look out the window and I can't read. -- I took a train that went through Milwaukee and had a twenty minute wait there. I decided to call the Prather family to say hello and when I got Ken (you remember meeting him) he informed me that his younger brother Bob had died Sunday and was being buried tonight. He was in an accident and had a broken leg and pneumonia set in. He was such a big, vigorous fellow, too. Never sick a day in his life, as far as I know. I suppose it might have been in the Madison papers but I had no way of knowing.
I had a little bad luck today, -- strained a ligament in my shoulder or something, when I lifted my suitcase and started toward the I.C. It was so bad and so hard for me to manage my bag, the racket, my coat and handbag that I changed my plans and went right to the station and took a train that left an hour earlier and went right thru Milwaukee. It was air-conditioned and a lovely train -- beautiful wood panelling and new beautifully upholstered seats, etc. so I was fairly comfortable. I was able to get on it a half hour early, too.
I'd had no lunch and wouldn't get home till after supper so I investigated the cocktail lounge in the rear of the train for a sandwich and a coke.
There were no stops made between Chicago and Milwaukee -- took 80 minutes for 90 miles.
A streamliner just passed -- may have been the Hiawatha - it really was travelling. I'm coming to the end of my paper and will have to stop this scribbling - it helps to keep from dwelling too much on sad news, tho, and you probably don't mind a letter scribbled on a train. Wish you were with me now. I thought of you when I was in that good looking cocktail lounge -- it was like a modernized diner, -- and I haven't been on diners often enough but what I still get a kick out of it. The tables jiggle just enough to make it interesting.
We're going through Pewaukee now, where we once spent a summer in a cottage from May to October. The water looks high. There are so many crossings over the road that it seems like this train is constantly blowing its whistle. It's air-cooled too but not as new a train as from Chicago to Milwaukee. This train is making all the little stops. I'm wondering if it will stop at [can't read town -- Ionia maybe?] a little Podunk if there ever was one. I remember the first time we took Jane S. to Madison with us. We told her she had to remember all the little towns and she worked so hard at it.
We are now in Pashots [maybe Nashots? again, can't read very easily] Isn't that wonderful? Now it's O'Kauchee we're in. Don't you like the names of these Wisconsin towns? This next 85 miles will be in two hours and twenty minutes. Some difference . Arrived home safely --
Love,
Ellen
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