[Granville-Hough] 7 May 2009 - Loverly Letters

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 07:54:26 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: LoverlyLetters - 7 May 2009

I, Granville Hough, have told this story several times by email, but I 
do not remember who received copies. It is not exactly hygienic, but 
that is the way things were. It may also indicate how hookworm or other 
diseases could spread throughout a community if one is interested in 
public health.
When we joined forces with Grandpa Jim Richardson, we (that is I, 
Clifford, Donald, and Roland Hough) worked the land on the county line 
with Simpson County. The next neighbor across the line was a Dye family 
who sharecropped the Anderson Yelverton farm. In the former Anderson 
Yelverton home was the family of Carl and Daisy (Bryant) Yelverton, 
granddaughter of Wild Bill Sullivan. Carl did not grow up liking 
farming, and he had become a house painter. In 1939, when we joined up 
with Grandpa, Carl was painting houses for some contractor near Jackson. 
He could get home only on weekends. Daisy was alone with her three 
children, or more, in the Yelverton house.
(Historically, Grandpa and Grandma had bought their land from Mr. 
Anderson Yelverton, and Anderson or his parents had built and lived in 
the house where Grandpa lived, and which is now the older part of the 
Travis home.)
We had a hog-proof fence along the county line as we had a hog and calf 
pasture there. A hog-proof fence had thick mesh and caught leaves and 
everything else which blew that way. We had a couple of small fields 
there which we sometimes opened to the pigs and calves, so we had a 
goodly stretch of this tight fence dividing the property and marking the 
county line. One day as we worked in one of the fields, we noticed that 
pages of letters had blown up to the fence and were caught in it. Out of 
childhood curiosity, one of us picked up a page of one of these letters 
and looked at it. We paid no attention to the brownish spots on the 
pages as the soil in the field was brownish and they looked just like 
any muddy spot.
We went along the fence and got different pages and we finally got a 
whole letter we could read. We could see it was a love letter from Carl 
to Daisy, sometimes with references to Cleta and Wanda and the other of 
their children. Then we began to study the letters more closely. My, my, 
this was an education! We had never read such language, written with 
such fervor. So this was how you made love to your wife by mail!! The 
letters were much better than the stories in ôTrue Confessionsö a sort 
of mild pornographic magazine young women slipped from house to house in 
that era. This was the real thing, Carl and Daisy, whom we had known all 
our lives. So we looked at several of the letters and they were three or 
four months old. So we then began think about what to do with them.
Roland was for taking them to our mother, but Clifford thought that 
would get us a good spanking. I talked about returning them to Daisy, 
but then realized how embarrassing it would be to do that. Donald, I 
believe, suggested we leave them where they were. We knew they were 
there and could come look at them anytime we wanted to. They were, after 
all, lodged on a county line fence, and did not really belong to 
anybody. So we carefully put them back in the fence in a way that would 
prevent them from blowing away.
About ten days later, we were back working the crops along that fence 
and decided to check for new letters. It had rained in the meantime, and 
as soon as we picked up a letter, the brown spots had run and we had an 
unmistakable odor. We had an instant realization of how the love letters 
had been used. We then climbed up on the fence and we could see in the 
distance the outhouse from which they had blown. That ended our 
investigation. While we retained an interest in Carl and DaisyÆs love 
life, we did not pursue it through CarlÆs letters. We just let them 
develop it as they chose, and they were a loverly couple all their lives.
We did not expect such a surprise as Smith County had made a great 
effort in the previous four or five years to install covered sanitary 
privies, and just about every house had one. However, Simpson County had 
not yet established such a hygienic program; and we were looking across 
the line into an open outhouse in that county.
Was Daisy being disrespectful of CarlÆs love and affection to use his 
love letters in that way? Well, you have to think of the financial 
situation. Daisy and Carl were having a hard time just feeding and 
clothing their children. There was no money for a luxury like toilet 
paper. They did not even take a newspaper, and the supply of Sears & 
Roebuck catalogs must have been exhausted. Daisy was a town girl, being 
reared in Mize, and probably never used corn cobs. Therefore, she had to 
make the best use she could of every available piece of paper.
Now, in my life I have heard people use the term, ôrough as a corn cob,ö 
without the slightest idea of what it meant. If Daisy tried them, she 
must have decided there were other compromises easier to make.

One of the Minnesota radio comedians, Garrison Keillor, had a story 
which explains the Depression problem. A Nebraska farmer was in town, 
and the local newspaper owner was trying desperately to sell his papers. 
The farmer wanted to subscribe but had no money. The newspaper owner 
would not sell on credit, but he did need something to burn in his stove 
to cook food. He said: ôLook, I canÆt sell on credit, but I will take 
whatever you have. IÆll even swap for your corn cobs.ö To which the 
farmer replied in amazement, ôMister, if I had corn cobs, I would not 
need your newspaper!ö