Epistles from Pap: Letters from the man known as 'The Will Rogers of Indiana' Part 12

Somehow, somewhere, sometime, this family will have to go into a huddle on these wedding signals, or I'm going to find myself with a lot of uniforms--and no clothes.

Yours for more clothes and fewer costumes,

RUSSELLVILLE HAS GOOD CREDIT AT THE WALDORF

March 17, 1940 Mr. B. C. Byers 1150 Oakwood Ave.

Dayton, Ohio

My dear B.C.: Well! Well! Well! I'm threatening to do a thing I've been threatening for about a year--write you a letter. . .

Joan was married Nov. 18th, 1939 in St. Bartholomew's Church (Episcopal), corner 51st and Park Avenue, New York City, across the street from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Her parental father and his family retinue, large and small, married and unmarried, were hosteled on the 12th floor of the Waldorf. And you can imagine what a stir among the employees we simple country folks made. They had seen nothing like us in that place since its corner stone was laid, and they haven't since. . .

Dr. Oxnam's (now Bishop Oxnam, stationed at Boston) wife and daughter were to be our guests at the Hotel in our suite of rooms count them, 8 of them. The Bishop was to have been present to give a prayer--Joan had graduated at De Pauw when he was President there--but old St. Bartholomew said: "No. No Methodist, or other cult, can pray at an Episcopal Church wedding. We run the Church, and incidentally the wedding, and what praying is done, we'll do." So the Bishop got sort of miffed and went on to Arizona ahead of time.

The wedding was at 4 p.m., the reception immediately following.

Joan was a feature writer on the a.s.sociated Press in New York City--a splendid job. Naturally her a.s.sociates were newspaper folks and writers, mostly men, who knew Kentucky Tavern from Coca-Cola. The wedding reception was to be held in the New York Newspaper Women's Club in the Midston House (hotel near Rockefeller Center). It had a bar, and Joan somehow got the silly idea it was the duty of the bride's father, for this occasion, to stock that bar with tools having an alcoholic content. . . So we brought along the main feature of the reception refreshments: 8 quarts in my grips, 8 in Frank's, 4 in Munny's, 4 in Margaret's, and Sir Walter Scott Behmer brought 3.

Mrs. Oxnam was to know nothing about it. She didn't--until she stepped into the Club rooms. Then anyone would know it, unless he had spent a lifetime refereeing skunk-squirting contests.

Old man Thomas, I think his name is, formerly Editor of the New York Times, now a sort of newspaperman head of the Pulitzer School of Journalism, and who had Joan in his cla.s.ses when she went to that school, got tight and went all around telling the guests his great grandpappy was half Indian. His good old wife stayed sober, and as a result sprained an ankle on the scuffed-up rug. The woman Editor of Vogue, or else one of its princ.i.p.al writers, kissed me because she said I looked like her cousin who had his leg shot off in the Spanish-American War. In the excitement I kissed Mary Beth Plummer--top woman writer on the a.s.sociated Press and incidentally about the best looking--just to show my good taste.

Early in the game, Munny saw what was coming. So she shepherded Mrs. Oxnam and daughter away early. They put the daughter to bed.

Then went out on their own, and in some unaccountable manner got into the bar of the Hotel, saw what they had done--and ordered lemonade. All Munny needed to complete the picture was a basket of eggs on one arm and a fresh dressed chicken under the other.

My Gos.h.!.+ But we had a time.

What with buying extra booze, taxi-cabbing everybody all over h.e.l.l's Half Acre, eating in the "Cert Room," which was named for some famous Spanish painter, or paperhanger, and tipping hundreds (it seemed), I thought I might run low in cash. So I slipped quietly around to a room labeled "Credit Manager," walked in and saw this woman sitting in the big chair. She saw the surprise on my face, smiled and said: "I am the Credit Manager. Are you looking for me?"

"My name is Durham. I live in Indiana, and they're taking it away from me around here faster than they do back home on Thursdays at the main gate of our County Fair. I may run out of money, and I want to know how I'd go about getting a draft cashed, if I had to."

"May I see the draft?"

I pulled out the bill fold, fetched out a $50 draft, and sure enough there it was in big letters, RUSSELLVILLE BANK, payable to me.

She looked at it, then at me quizzically, and said: "Are you the father of Joan Durham, the Feature Writer who was married yesterday over at St. Bartholomew's. I read her AP features."

"Yes mam," I said proudly, "I'm her Pap."

"Have you any sort of identification card, letter, driver's license, or something to identify you?"

"Yes, mam. I have a bad note on Peter M-- back at Russellville for $20 I wish somebody would collect, a members.h.i.+p card in the Putnam County Farm Bureau and a New York Central pa.s.s"-- cautiously saving the best for the last.

"The pa.s.s will be sufficient." She looked at it and then at me and said: "We will cash the draft any time you want it cashed-- now, if you want it."

"No," I said, "but if that won't run me, is there any way to cash checks?"

We talked quite a bit--about Russellville (which she never heard of), the wedding, the Hotel, farming, cattle and hogs, etc.

Eventually she said: "We'll cash checks for you up to $1,000, Mr.

Durham."

Well. By that time she was far, far ahead of me, so I tried to catch up. "Miss", I said, "how long have you been Credit Manager here?"

"About six years", she said. "Why?"

"Because you won't be Credit Manager very much longer, giving out credit that way."

Then she did throw the witty bombsh.e.l.l. She said:

"Well, Mr. Durham, no one from Russellville ever gave this hotel a bad check yet."

And after a little more talk, in which she bragged, for my benefit, how she could tell people who wouldn't give bad checks, I left and went upstairs and bragged to Munny how Morgan, Loeb and I could cash checks at the Waldorf--just like that. . .

Yours,

HAVEN'T YOU EVER HEARD A RADIO?

March 19, 1940

My dear Mrs. Cunningham: After the very kind and considerate treatment received from you, Harlan and his wife during my rather short stay in Miami, you must be thinking I am an ingrate for not writing sooner, but the fact is, I've blamed near been sick all the time since leaving there. Coming home I was a trifle dizzy for a day or so, but I attribute all that to those two singers who broadcasted from your music room that Sunday night. Good old Walter sized up my trouble in his efficient way, and knowing my background, realized those girls coupled with Miami's metropolitan hours and night life would make any native of Russellville dizzy. And so, he drove practically all the way home. . .

Pa.s.sing through Jonesville, a town about like Waverly, Walter saw a sign, "Home Cooking." Of course we stopped and went in. A hill-billying radio in the kitchen made the dining room hideous with its squawking. The Old Brakeman asked for grits, fish and sea food. He got boiled side-pork, boiled cabbage, boiled beans and corn bread. And later he was to get what was advertised as pie, but looked like unto no pie I had seen in my 58 years of active pie viewing.

I asked the waitress: "Where is that terrible noise coming from?"

With a puzzled expression, she answered: "Why that's the radio."

Then something dawned, her face lighted and she asked: "Haven't you ever heard a radio before?"

"Is it a bird or an animal," I asked.

"Neither one," said she. "It's a little box you turn on and the music comes out. Ain't you ever seen one? We turn it on of a mornin' and it plays all day."

"No. But if we came this way again and brought company, would you turn it off while we're eating?"

"I sh.o.r.e will," she said--and she meant it.

The foregoing was among the lesser highlights of our trip straight home. . .

Was in Detroit last week. Saw Joannie, husband and apartment. The husband is as big as the apartment is small. It's an up and downstairs affair. Little stairway from living room upstairs. The whole thing is about the size of a smallish hen-house, the upper floor representing the roosts.

As ever,

CHAPTER IV: THE WAR YEARS--1942-1945

Pap was way too old for active involvement in World War Two. He had to be content watching his children play their parts (Frank and Margaret both joined the Armed Service, although the latter had to be consoled after being initially turned down for a commission). Pap's sideline role did not deter him from making wry observations about professed patriotism on the part of the legislature ("political hooey") and the effects of war on the home front (shortages, black market activity, travel restrictions and inflation).

He also kept in touch through the mail with his scattered children and his wife. Despite the difficulties of wartime transportation, "Munny" insisted upon making her annual summer excursions to Milford, Pennsylvania, to attend to property inherited from her parents. This caused Pap a bit of anxiety, as he feared for her comfort but did not wish to take undue advantage of his railroad pa.s.s perquisites. He also felt lonely at home alone, as his youngest daughter, Aura May, left for college. In some of his strongest letters, he expressed concern, usually with humor but sometimes quite poignantly, that family members should not interfere with each other's pending marital plans.

Otherwise, Pap tended to the farm, his lobbyist duties, and wrote a newspaper ad celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Russellville Bank.