Lone December Letter from the Lone Star State - 12/12/1916

El Paso, Texas

Dec. 12, 1916

My Dear Mother: -
You must please excuse my writing, my fingers are so cold I can hardly bend them. The fellow, who says it never gets cold in Texas is "All Wrong". Water pipes freeze up & burst every night. There was an inch of ice on watering trough this morning.

Evidently you have not been getting all the mail I send. Several I have written to say they rec. no letters on certain dates. Guess I had better start putting a return on all letters again for a while.

I answered your letter of Dec. 4th. and you asked about pickles, cake etc., they were all fine kept. - O.K. a good pudding, etc. would go fine, as you suggested. I really think it would be better to send cash so I can get dates, olives, etc. at grocery around this place.

I wish you would keep one of my pictures for yourself as my present to you. (Gee but it's cold) & get something for the rest as from me.

I rec. the calendar from Dad Sunday & Marion's letter Monday. Leona seems to get her letters, & I always write home at the same time I write her. I wrote you Sunday evening But didn't have time Monday morning to mail it, there it was forgotten so I tore it up this morning.

Hope you got a good set for Leona. She has never gone back on me, and I think the world of her.

Well, since I spoke of the pictures of myself you need not show this letter to the rest, & I shall write again tonight.

Love to all

Howard

It's hard telling which pictures Howard was referring to as his mother's Christmas present. At first, I thought it may have been the professional photo that I used in the header of this blog, but that seems like a rather fancy uniform for a National Guardsman. I also found the above photo in with the same box of letters. In comparison, it seems rather small for a gift, but maybe it was all he could make do with at the time.

I found it rather amusing that Mother Effie was so interested in sending Howard so much food through the mail when Howard could just go up the street and get a lovely empanada or two. Maybe I was just tainted too much by the care package I received in college where ants invaded my cookies - and that was with the modern marvel of Ziploc baggies! Regardless, it did pique my curiosity about U.S. Post Office history (another phrase I never thought I'd type).

Before 1912, the Post Office could not carry parcels weighing more than four pounds. When an act was passed expanding the parcel weight on August 24, 1912, Parcel Post exploded. Companies like Montgomery Ward and Sears' catalog profits soared. Perhaps, the Goods caught this new mail order craze - kind of like wanting to use Amazon Fresh to deliver Howard's Christmas dinner.

I can't imagine how worried Howard's mother must have been, not receiving a letter from him in more than three weeks! I had to take a look to see when the next letter is dated, just to see how long Mother Effie would have to wait. It isn't dated until January 3. The good news is that I took a sneak peek at contents of the letter. Its contents tell me that there may actually be at least one more letter out there that I can find that Howard wrote between December 12 and January 3. Stay tuned for more excitement!