March 18, 1957
Monday a.m.

Dearest John,

The bus has come and gone and breakfast is over. Jimmy has even had his little sit on my lap which is almost routine every morning.

Before I get to rushing around today I want to get a little letter off to you. Saturday was a nice, although a little cold, day. I decided that we would go down to see the Millers in the afternoon. I knew that we have been promising that we would come some afternoon, probably Sunday, and it was almost two months since they had moved, so we took off. Had no trouble finding them and it was like a family reunion. Bill has to come up early tonight for his glasses, so they may all come up here for supper. It is an effort [for them] to do that on a school night.

I’ve been watching that oil gage like a hawk because I can’t understand how that [?] happened. But something is drastically wrong with our oil consumption. All of a sudden just as I got to Elkhart the gage flopped down, so I stopped and bought a quart. But that barely kept the gage where it is supposed to be. And when we got home the thing showed only about a half inch of oil and it took about four or five quarts to fill it. And that all in one week. I noticed that whenever I slowed down it really put out a smoke screen. So yesterday I kept my speed down to about 30 or 35 all the time and the smoke screen was not as bad. The man in the station at Elkhart said he could see no leak and I haven’t either. So is it rings that we need? The floor has rusted out — we can see the ground from the inside — I almost feel that we should look for a trade-in in better condition. Or get moved where one car is all we need.

We had a nice time with Damers yesterday. My admiration of those folks goes up each time I meet them. The youngsters really had a good time and didn’t want to come home. And Becky cried because we had tea!

Sturgis was beaten on Friday night by Greenville. And Dick didn’t get the title because the coach would not let him continue wrestling on Friday and he had to forfeit a match. He had been quite sick and it was too much for him. They were all pretty disappointed, but I think they accepted it as from the Lord. I did not get to talk to any of them.

Dorothy has to have some cupcakes for a school party today and i want to get ready for Millers, besides doing some washing, so I had better sign off. I think I have covered the news. Except to let you know again that we surely do miss you and look forward to seeing you. We thought of you a lot yesterday out at Wheaton. I do wish that telephone calls weren’t as expensive. I love you and I just can’t get used to having you gone so much — howbeit the Lord has given joy and peace just to know that you are busy for Him.

All my love,
Nellie

[In honor of my Mom’s 100th birthday on March 23, 2020, I dug out her letters to my dad and started reading. In 1956 my dad took a job teaching at Emmaus Bible School in Oak Park, IL. The college was young and didn’t have funds to pay a regular wage. So there wasn’t money to move the family from Sturgis, Michigan to the Chicago suburbs. So Mom stayed at a drafty farm house with six kids: Dorothy 10, David 9, Margaret 8, Johnny 6, Jimmy 4, and Danny 2. She was pregnant with me.]