Further Adventures of Rae Wylie

I have discovered some more letters written to my grandmother by Rachel Wylie, her tent-mate in Yellowstone during the summer of 1916. They tell the story of the final part of Rae’s education and of the fun she had in the first place she taught.

[Envelope]

Epistle to the Deaux Drops #3.
Official time for Park Migration.

1 month – 23 days in 1917. 1 yr. 1 month – 23 days in 1918.

If you are going to put it off any longer don’t expect me to keep tract of the time—it’s too sad to think about.

[Outside envelope flap]

Extract from the “Sabbath Reading.” Probably you’ve read it.
If _ _ _ _ or the under world were turned upside down what would be the trade mark printed on it? (ans. other side)
[Inside envelope flap]
Made in Germany.

Los Angeles Calif.
Mar. 22, 1917.

Beloved D.D.s, —

Hello, Hawaii? I’ve been hibernating for the winter and just woke up. Don’t think when you get a whiff of these orange blossoms that I have grown desperate and committed matrimony. No such good luck, they are simply put in to tell you that it’s orange blossom time in California. They have quite a scent just now and I do hope they are polite enough to keep it so you can smell it too. Got them off my own little orange tree in the back yard.

Oh! California is great just now, trying to make up for me not getting to go back to the Park. Our wisteria vine is all white, the roses——but I can’t tell you about them. Was up the valley last week applying for a school. (I adore such a job.) All along the road going up were roses, not back east, front yard roses but real beauties like you buy at the florist’s for $4 a dozen or rather like you don’t buy—people plant them along the road like they would sun flowers back east. Then after you had looked at the roses, you looked behind at the orange groves with one-half of the trees in bloom and the other half with ripe oranges, beyond were the mountains and over all this peachy blue sky and the sun that don’t know how to quit shining. Yummy. Yum. Me for an orange ranch in Southern Calif.

Well I suppose if I don’t quit raving on my surroundings and get down to business you won’t be pleased so here goes with every thing I know and some things I don’t know.

Now really first of all I don’t know a darn thing (darn perfectly proper, used every day by my psychology teacher) about the Park. You may not believe me but it’s gospel that Lady Mac does not know yet what she is going to do this summer. They have never heard from the Department of the Interior whether Wylie can have his camps at Grand Canyon. I think some one had better turn that dept. inside out and make an exterior dept. of it so we can find out what they are doing and why. She will go to G. C. if they get the camps there. And only the D. of I. and the Creator know what will happen.

As to people who are going back—Gula Frew has applied for tent-work. Bobbie McC. also has expressed his desire to return, how I shall miss him I really never feel quite right when I go out at night any more—“conscious of a something lacking.” Frank Vetter thinks he will go. And that’s all I know of.

Uncle Roy is going to tour the east and has just returned from a trip to Florida. Geysers will have to have a new guide. Yes I had a dandy letter from him. He has not changed in the least and practices at being in love most of the time. He must have gotten overly excited over some one for I’ll swear he wrote on wedding stationery.

Shorty Green mourns the departure of the horses—no park at all—it’s a burning shame—and will have to work for Sears and Roebuck all summer. Did you know he worked for them? Well he does, asked me if I had ever heard of them. Have I—oh! no. Maybe he could get us some bargains on spring suits. Every time he writes he sends a picture of himself with other films. I’m going to start a rogue’s gallery.

I don’t think Gordon is very nice to tell you I wrote him a letter. I don’t see any chance of getting him at all if he acts that way. But I just answered his letter friendly like, I hadn’t written on any serious subjects yet. Really Vess, it was nearly all weather, you know he used to live in Calif., and then he would rave over some school teacher in the east. It was real disappointing. I don’t think I’ll answer his last letter at all.

No sir Dick, Ed never sent me that picture even after you told him to and I don’t care if nothing makes him sore, some things do me and I want that picture.

Well back onto the main road—there will be no Thumb or Gibbon camp this year as you know but there will be one at Mammoth Hot Springs where Mr. Moorman will reign instead of at Gardiner. Other camps just the same. We also heard they would use the Shaw Powell sites at the Canyons and Geysers, that they wanted to use the Log office at the Geysers. I should think it would be a heap easier to build a log office than to move the camp over there away from all the good geysers, log bath house, bunk house, gentian patch, Firehole River and cow bridge. Besides the office we had wasn’t half bad. I’ll tell you they need us to decide a few things.

Mr. Miles was supposed to come down to L.A. but didn’t and I have now told you every thing I know about the new arrangements.

Well school continues but I am having a real good time this term. Start out in the morning with Nature study. We make trips around the campus; every one hunts a bug or a weed and runs wildly to the teacher. What is it? That, oh that’s a cinch beetle. Out come all the note books and down goes cinch beetle—4 legs, 2 on each side, 2 green spots on tail, sharp teeth but not poisonous, etc. On to the next bug. No outside studying, a delightful subject for one not studiously inclined. Only I rebel at snakes. Our beloved instructor tells us we will so much more win the respect of our pupils if we will only not be afraid of snakes. Respect or no respect I’ll not handle snakes.

Next we rush madly across the campus to oral expressions class where every one gets up in front of the class and shouts to the clouds. To-morrow we rave over Lochinvar. No outside studying to speak of, every one laughs at every one else and we have a delightful time.

The next hour I meet my Waterloo, I go to Art. Our teacher is a dear and personally I like her well, but between you and me I don’t think she has good taste. At least she don’t appreciate my efforts. Her idea of rhythm of straight lines and my idea conflict terribly but I always give in because it wouldn’t do to show her up in front of the class. No outside study to that class either.

Next I go to assembly; if exciting I enjoy it, otherwise I sleep.

The fifth hour I observe teaching in the training school any place I feel inclined. Friday went to the un-graded room where they work on the children who are either half or wholly lacking. One child took a notion to entertain me and drew pictures for my benefit. She asked me my name and then began to specialize on circles and as she drew them said, this is Miss Rachel. I know I’ve gained but I’m far from a circle and I’m not going back to that room. Will observe children in their right minds. (Just got one more class to tell about and then I’m done.)

After lunch go to physical ed and that is the best yet. We do folk dances, stand on our heads and all kinds of stunts and then take a cold shower bath.

A jitney bus of the 1915 to 1919 era.

One of the girls has a new auto and the boy that is teaching her to run it comes [with] us and we do Southern Calif. His father is running for city councilman and we go around and see people for him. Have a big sign on the wind shield, “R.P. Benton for City Council” Of course people can’t tell what it is at a distance and naturally take us for a jitney bus.¹ It’s quite mortifying every time you come to a corner to have people try to get in. Lela is getting along fine at driving too, just been run into twice and both times the other people were easy and paid for all damages. Much more exciting than nothing happening.

Oh! say wouldn’t you like to run around old Y.N.P. in an auto? I know Chip Samuels would run one just right. Wish I could be with you all at Lake Erie this summer since you have decided what you are going to do. We are going to the beach and I expect to work in the store and go back and forth.

The election of teachers here doesn’t come off until June. Isn’t that a great way to do business. We have to wait until then to find out. But I should worry. I have a good place up on the fourth floor at the store in a section with three boys. We run the place about right too on Saturdays. Our head man is a Jew, I know because he has a “stein” on the end of his name, but he is fine looking and so nice that I’m crazy about him.

Clara is going to join the Red Cross and I have serious intentions. We have a class out at school to teach us to make dressings etc. If war starts in tho’, I’m going to apply for a place as a traffic policeman at 7th & Broadway. The policeman there is quite rude to us when we pass him in a hurry. He needs to go to war and get shot and I will have an opportunity to use my gestures acquired in oral expression class—goodness knows there is no other time in life I’ll need them.

Nance’s people are all out here from the Grandmother down to the baby. They have a real nice bungalow and we dedicated it with a slumberless party one night before the family arrived. Nance works in the telephone office but does not like it and has an application in down at the store where I work.

Bee those papers you write are great. To think I slept with all that knowledge last summer and didn’t absorb some of it. But I am going to get something into my head, for Waldo the smallest boy has the mumps or we think he has for he has been exposed and is now sick. Just as soon as he wakes up he calls for me and I have to get in bed with him and I think that will be a good way to get them. Any of you that want them send in a written application and I’ll see what I can do for you. But be sure you have good reliable references. Experience also is desirable—oh! you school applications I can’t think of anything else.

Dick I wish you would come west and teach. Calif is such a stiff old place you almost have to go to Normal before you can get a school, but it isn’t the only western state; wish tho’ you would be near me.

Perla your name is Job. Don’t see how you even can find time to write all those poems and every thing you send. I certainly appreciate them and if I can’t ever repay you in this world you’ll get your reward in the next.

Glad my films have escaped New Castle, I had begun to think they were quarantined or something.

Bee you got your prophesy a little mixed on Bill and I. He happens to be choosing Clara, or trying to, only she refuses to [be] chose. Guess maybe he has given up hope by this time. She and the lady she rooms with worked it beautifully that she was never at home when he called. Bill is a naughty, naughty boy. He hasn’t gotten over those moonlight nights in the park yet.

Have heard from Fergie a couple of times and must answer. If the swaddies down there are like the ones that go thru here, she will have a good time alright.

What has become of Cody? Never hear anything about her any more.

Well I will close. This is a letter of some length, I believe in making up for lost time. You can do as you please about reading it.

Lady Mac’s address is 631 Cypress Av, Burbank Calif. Guess it was Bee said she didn’t have it. Sorry I can’t give you any more news on the Park question but guess you are out of the notion of going.

Please don’t follow my example when it comes to answering letters but be good Samaritans.

With lots and lots and lots of love from
Rae.

Irene Castle in a summer 1917 suit.

Almost forgot to tell you about my spring apparel. Have a new white silk suit and hat to match. Quite a clinging garment, in fact too clinging to be modest and comfortable at the same time. Am afraid I’ll have to invest in hoops. This is positively the end.


[Epistle #4 seems to be missing. Outside of next letter, which is 21 pages long.]

Epistle to the Deaux Drops #5.
Nothing like enlarging your business. Am now engaging the parcel post to carry my correspondence.

[Inside of letter.]

Gray, Calif.²
Mar. 8, 1918.

Dearest Deaux Drops:

No school to-day! Hurrah! Anyone who has lived thru the nervous strain of teaching seven children will realize what a day’s rest must mean to my nerve wracked brain. The last two days have been so rainy that three of my brood could not come, and so I have had only four to deal with, but you will agree that even that number is too great for one person to handle. When I awoke this morning and heard the wind blowing pell-mell against our palatial residence I thought, “No school to-day,” and I was just turning over to enjoy life when I thought another thought, “What a perfectly good chance to write to the Deaux-Drops”—and here I am.

I haven’t the slightest idea what I have told you about this dear old desert, but I believe I introduced you to my school, rooming house, the looks of the country and the almost weekly dances so I will not repeat any of those things. Your experience this winter have been interesting and especially Bee’s escapade (how I should like to have been there) and altho’ we haven’t had the “below” weather, yet we do have weather and weather and sometimes we get it in big bunches. I am so used to “roughing” it now that civilization and the summer to come look mighty black and dreary.

One of the first real good times we had this year was the week before Thanksgiving. A bunch of us (picture A) started out on a two-days camping trip. We went nine miles over to a little town called Palm Springs and right thru the town to a house at the foot of the hills, where lived some people Mrs. McCargar (my desert mother) knew. Here we unloaded ourselves and the burros (picture B) behind the barn which was to be our hotel.

To go back to the start I will introduce you to our crowd in picture A—please move to the right ladies. First and foremost, John Riley, one of the first natives in the valley, age 36, appearances deceiving, very good natured, unmarried, in fact an all around good investment for any single woman with a bank account. Next, Wesley the Los Angeles boy who lived by us on 47th. St. and with whose aunt I board—Wes stayed until Xmas. Next, Aleita my 18 year old school girl (please excuse using figures³, it saves time) Next behind, Mrs. McCargar, my mother. Next in front, Regina Sweetingham another school girl and niece of the young man beside her, who is brother of the woman next him, the said woman (Mrs. Sweetingham) being mother to Regina. The uncle Albert was from Detroit, visiting his sister and seeing the desert for the first time which is the best time to enjoy it. Mercy McCargar also went with us but did not get in the picture as she was back in the sand hills bidding her lover a fond farewell—they were married two weeks later. Then the other member of the party took the picture and didn’t get in on it, but believe me that was all she lost out on.⁴

As we had only four burros, and one was a pack burro, five of us had to walk. We left Bob’s Well, a flowing well about two miles from here that all the country uses to haul from (only shows drinking barrel in picture) at nine o’clock and got to Palm Springs at twelve. It isn’t exactly easy walking in sand either. Then we ate a picnic dinner and explored the town. Palm Springs is a sort of health resort and fairly exclusive one. It is a pretty town; enough water comes from the mountains to irrigate well so the place is full of trees and we picked up lemons and oranges on the streets—don’t need sidewalks as the ground is sandy so the streets are just nice shady ones with grass walks—and rode McKinney’s (where we left our burros) pony by turns. There are quite a number of wealthy & noted people there and also a countess and duchess; it really is like a town you read about. But the strangest things there are the hot springs which you may have read about. You can go in them but cannot sink below your lungs. Some of the men tried sitting on each other’s shoulders but could not force each other down. The springs some times move from one corner of the bath house to the other and the Indians, who run the place, are quite superstitious about them. San Jacinto, the mountain just behind, is a volcano and it is when it rumbles and carries on that the springs get frisky—they certainly are uncanny and weird affairs; you think you are standing on firm ground when all at once you are not and there you stand (?) in the water on nothing. The Indian reservation was interesting too; at some times of the year the Indians have war dances, fire-eating dances and all kinds of celebrations but we did not get to see them.

That evening we built a fire up the canyon and had our suppers there, also had a weeny roast. It was beautiful moonlight and when we came back to the house we all played games in the yard. About ten o’clock we went to the barn to bed. We spread canvas on the hay, or corn stalks as it turned out to be, and lined up in the following fashion.

It certainly was one experience but altho’ the cattle & horses surrounding us munched their grain peacefully and noisily and altho’ Mrs. Mc. snored most profoundly, I could not sleep—maybe I was afraid I would miss something. I do know this, that the place I had next a wire screen window was a cold one, the north pole nothing on that place, but for that matter no one had as much on as they should. We would get half started to sleep when the dogs outside would start to bark and chase the cattle around and around the barn; then the little yappers inside would begin to bark and the horses would stop eating and snort. At twelve every one woke up, we passed comments on the weather, said unholy things of the dogs, turned our other side to the jaggy cornstalks (the canvas has slipped down someplace), and the rest went to sleep.

About an hour later Albert woke every one up in his attempts to put on his shirt, which he had taken off for some reason. It was rather a risky business to try to dress on a sliding hill of cornstalks but he finally accomplished it, and after giving much advice on the subject, the crowd dropped off to sleep again.

But I couldn’t sleep, nor Mrs. S. We lay there, groaned and giggled. Before long I felt Something dropping around my head and then I discovered the chicken roost just above—you can use your imagination for the rest. Mrs. S. got a corn stalk, and in our efforts to move the beasts farther up the roost, knocked one old hen down on the suffering sleepers below. The dogs didn’t like it and said so; then everything in and around the barn started up their infernal racket and the crowd woke up and wanted to know what we two were laughing at.

Just at day break the rooster began to do his bit; he had a wonderful voice that stopped short with a cracking sound, then went off with a bang. Well he set in his corner and displayed himself until we took him at his word and got up.

Such a bunch you never saw, my skirt had to be washed after the chicken had gotten thru with it, and I had to run around with my hair down my back while Albert went to the store after hairpins, mine having gotten lost in the cornstalks.

We finally got ourselves together and our breakfast eaten and were ready for a hike up the canyon. Girls, it was a beautiful place and the waterfall at the top, grand. We stumped each other on the hardest rocks⁵ and in the afternoon started to climb over the lowest range which is not low by any means. We made our own trail straight up, Bridal Veil Falls couldn’t come near it, and most of the party backed out before long. But A. and I decided to show them what Easterners⁶ are made of, so we went on to the top. It was some climb up and worse down; we would sit down and slide for about six feet, then jump about four straight down and we never knew whether we would land in this world or the next. Evidently old Nick wasn’t ready to claim us yet, for we lived thru the performance and got back to the house in time to eat supper and start on our nine mile trip home in the moonlight.

Yes, we had school the next day. I wasn’t even stiff. As to tooth brushes etc. Bee, we hadn’t time to think of them so didn’t miss them. That is the only way to hike, we didn’t even take cups but lay down on the ground and drank out of the streams. Great life!! I wouldn’t have missed any of it. And just think in three weeks we go again. There is no school on Friday before Easter as there is an election in the school house, so we will leave here Thursday after school thus having three days to visit three different canyons.

We have had some other camping trips of only a day’s length that were fun, guess you would call them hikes tho! I spend weeks ends often at Sweetingham’s and we go up in the hills behind their place and roll down in the sand, some stunt for dignified school teachers. Maybe tho’ you realize by this time I am taking an eight months vacation this winter.

Have you ever seen desert holly or desert mistletoe? We went after it before Xmas; the holly is gray with red berries and the mistletoe has berries like our Eastern mistletoe, which sometimes the sun turns pink, but it does not have the leaves, just covered with branches and berries.

Palm Springs desert area sandstorm.

Oh! Yes, we have had some sandstorms too and one especially. It came upon us all unsuspectingly one night, with such violence that I gave the place just three minutes to stand up. Before the three minutes were up, however, there was a great crash and upon investigation we found a window blown in and clear across the room. After several attempts we managed to get a door over the opening where the wind was blowing in at 110 miles per hour and Mrs. Mc, with the aid of the sewing machine,⁷ held the door in place while I hunted nails. Such a time—first I couldn’t find the matches, then the lamp upset, the stove pipe blew down, I stepped on Tiny the dog, he growled and ran at the cats, they spit and Pat began to bark, confusion reigned supreme, but I found the nails and when I turned to Mrs. Mc, I had to sit down in the middle of the floor and laugh. There she stood in her nightgown with her hair in all directions hanging to that door for dear life—all I could think of was that picture “Rock of Ages.”

The nails were no good, however, without a hammer, so I had to take my life in my hands & go to the tool chest on the back porch. The draft from the partly open window took me out of the door a flying and then I did my bit at the “Rock of Ages” stunt—the wind was so strong I had to hang on to the porch post, while I was thankful neighbors were scarce and the night dark; even a nightgown is not much protection on a windy night. The hammer secured and the door also, we went to bed to shiver until nine the next morning. We couldn’t get up until the storm was over and when we emerged we found every thing covered with half an inch of sand, the only clean places being little spots on the pillows where our heads had been—notice I didn’t report on the condition of our heads. There was no school and we excavated all day long. That was another experience I wouldn’t have missed for anything. We really got off quite easily tho’, for most of the neighboring toilets took an air trip; ours stayed with us to the end.⁸

Mrs. McCargar left Aleita and I to run the ranch, while she went down the valley to visit Mercy. She was gone two weeks and we got along nicely. Orr Sang, a neighbor widower,⁹ played the part of guardian angel (?) during the time and nothing could have been more exciting. He is one of these old fellows that have been every place and done everything; he also has his own interesting ways of telling his experiences, and his own expressions with which to punctuate them. These expressions, he claims, are not to be found in the almanac or the Bible; well I’ll agree on the almanac but I’m not so sure of the other book at times. He really should be put in a book and Harold Bell Wright¹⁰ don’t know what he missed when he passed up this valley. The San Gorgonian Pass which you find described in “Eyes of the World” is just a few miles from here, our sun sets in it every night. But to go back to Sang, he certainly took good care of us and together with Mr. Riley took us hunting and kept us supplied with cotton-tails. Also they entertained us in their shacks. Did you say Cook? Well I guess they can. It is quite the proper thing to call on gentlemen here, every one does. I wish Miss McClintic, from old Geneva, could drop in here but she probably would drop right out again and send us those books from off the old Dorm table, namely “Don’ts for Girls”¹¹ and “Marion Harland’s Book on Etiquette.”¹² She don’t need to bother, I know them by heart after forced readings and they have never harmed nor spoiled my life in the least. Please don’t choke on these paragraphs. I don’t have a typewriter and am hooverizing¹³ on paper and time.

Mr. Sang’s worst affliction is his teeth. He has two sets of false teeth but neither will stay in his mouth. He has given us several demonstrations of how they should work but won’t, and one time he got those self same teeth in and couldn’t for some time get them out. I never saw him so worried. I hope I managed to look the same way, you see, he wanted to exchange them when he got to Los [Angeles] and his chances at that time surely did look slim for an exchange. He has departed for Los and we surely do miss him.

One of the cattle men was riding this country after stray cattle for a week while Mrs. Mc was gone and he left us his horse when ever he was not using it. Indeed he let us have it sometimes when he could have been out on the range. It was a beauty, a great, big buckskin; you could see all over the desert when you were on his back. I also had a ride to the station on the dandiest Indian pony.

Right by the station is a row of hills called Garnet Hills; you can pick up real garnets on them. That is enough to make them interesting but we have something more interesting there now—a man. You agree don’t you? This man has been there since November camping in the hills but no one knew it until just recently. The only time he shows himself is when he goes to the store, and he does that at a time when few are around. The former store keeper was a German of somewhat questionable character; but he sold out the first of the year and the new man tells us this man comes down with plenty of money, usually gold. Don’t know why the other store keeper kept so quiet about the man. The people just supposed he was a prospector until one night they discovered red signal lights on the hill. The next day the station men investigated; they found lanterns on the crosses of the Mexican graves on the hill, but the Mexicans could or would not tell anything. They also hunted up the man’s camp but found nothing suspicious, so they decided the Mexicans had been having some burial rites and gave the thing up. But just the other day the station agent from Indio was up; he said for many nights there has been a white light on the highest hill; at first they tho’t it the reflection from the train headlights on the rocks but when it appeared every night at the same time, and lasted four hours each night, they grew suspicious and are going to have matters investigated. I wonder if it is a spy; they think he may belong to a signal system extending down to Mexico as they light is one that shows for great distances down the valley. If the Germans are down there I hope they stay.¹⁴ I am simply crazy to go up and see his camp but Mrs. Mc won’t even let us go hunt garnets now.

Did I tell you about our new married couple and what a time we had at the serenade; how they handed out so much beer and whiskey that the men all got hilarious etc etc. I am sure I did tho’ tell you and Perla, Bee so I will not bore you with the account again. We happened to be over at the station meeting Mrs. Mc that night and got in on it all. We drive to the station in daylight, meet the one-thirty or three A.M. train and sleep in the express room until daylight; I’ll soon be able to sleep anyplace. Since the local trains have been taken off, you can only get into this place in the middle of the night. We are on the main branch of the S.P. and the troops are sent thru; so needing the trains, they took off four passengers and left us to come and go in the dark.

The rains are beginning to freshen things up and the desert is turning green. After the rains the whole place begins to bloom, they say, every bush and plant has a flower and there are hundreds and hundreds that grow up and bloom. I can hardly wait till they get started; we will have some good nature study trips then. Aleita says you cannot walk without stepping on flowers, doesn’t that sound like magic? The lupine like we found in the park grows here. It is a much stalkier plant tho’ and the people do not want it; they call it “loco weed,” for the cattle eat it and go loco or get drunk.

I can’t begin to tell you every thing that happens here. We are busy all the time and yet I don’t know what we do. It isn’t school work that takes our time for I guess you know what it would be like. It is a good thing I have a conscience that troubles me when I don’t do my work right, for my trustees have been in Los Angeles most of the winter, all except for Sang and he never knew whether school existed or not. We visit over week ends and I did intend to tell you of our trip to some of my pupils up in what is called the “Devil’s Garden.” It gets its name from the numerous kinds of cacti growing there and is quite a picturesque place. I must tell you one little part tho’.

There were six children in the family and we ate, dance, slept, and all in one room; they are a fine family and the children as dear as can be. I fell in love with one little black-eyed fellow and he seemed to return the affection, for he would follow me every place, even to the toilet. Once, when in that cozy dwelling, I shut the door too hard and couldn’t get it open. Milton, the cute one, suggested I climb over as the place had no top, but I didn’t feel equal to the occasion. I told him to run in the house and tell Aleita to come; instead he ran over to his father, who was chopping wood in the yard, and called, “Daddy, teacher can’t get out of the toilet, come quick!” I don’t know which laughed the hardest, Daddy or I, but Daddy told Mother, and Mother told Aleita, and Aleita opened the lock and I got out. No use for that word “modesty” out here, you have to use your sense of humor instead.

Well I am beginning to feel those quitting signs which I should have felt much sooner, but my right arm has grown much stronger out here due partly to digging wells. That is my latest occupation. Mr. Riley is putting down a well and as men are scarce and not always available, being busy at their own ranches, Aleita and I go over after school and help him. Sometimes we windlass¹⁵ and sometimes go down and dig. The last two days we struck gravel and had to use the pick which was some work, our backs complained bitterly yesterday. It is some hot place down 45 feet underground but it is something new and therefore exciting. When we get 60 feet down we are going to drill for water. We could not work today as it was too windy; you wouldn’t believe it but a little pebble or anything dropped into the well goes down with such force that it stings like a bullet. The man at the bottom is at the mercy of those on the top but Mr. Riley is good-natured and lets us play around his well all we like. We dug four feet below the casing and then helped him cover and drop the casing which wasn’t so bad for amateurs. Was down a ninety foot well the other day and thought I would never reach the bottom, or the top either for that matter. For helping in this digging process we are to be treated to a trip to some mines over near Thousand Palm Canyon.

Well I will return to that stopping place, which doesn’t seem to exist. I could rave over this place forever but why trouble you further? I am putting in a few pictures; have given so many away that I have only a few left. They are not very good ones, don’t know what the developer was trying to do when he printed them; he seems to be strong on the shine. You can at least see the school house and what some of the natives look like.

Do you know what you are going to do this summer? I will probably work in Los Angeles—unholy thoughts. Clara may go East with the understanding, of course, she gets to come back in the fall. She is so anxious to have her mother come out but how I shall miss her.

I am glad Vessie you are better, what kind of an ailment are you going to try next; but then you didn’t frighten us with ptomaine poison, it was Dick.

I don’t know any park news. No, Cody, I do not have Katharine’s address. I have not heard from her for about a year. Even Shorty Green has failed me, I feel quite broken up over the matter. Maybe he has gone to war. Talking of war, I am simply a slacker lately but I don’t know when I could get anything done. You girls make me ashamed when you write of what you do; I realize I have done nothing at all. How I envy you, Cody, going to be a nurse.

Well I am closing, at last, really I am; you can’t say I don’t make up for lost time when I get started. Loving you the same as always; wishing I could see you all; sorry I make you read such a long jumble of nothing and promising never to write such a long letter again, I am,

Your desert sister,
Rae.


Rae Wylie remained in the same town for a few years as a teacher. She did get to go back to Yellowstone National Park to work in the Geysers camp store during the summer of 1920. There she and Beatrice Boedefeld were reunited when Bee brought her fiance, Fred Andrews, to Yellowstone along with her mother, Laura Boedefeld. Rae went home to Kansas when her stepfather died in 1927, and she took care of her mother thereafter. She taught school the rest of her life. She is buried next to her brother, Waldo, who died at the age of 21 when Rae was just 19.

**********************************
^1. Public transportation of the day. back
^2. A tiny settlement, no longer in existence, nine miles roughly northeast of Palm Springs, also called San Gorgonio. back
^3. Accepted style at this time was to write out the names of numbers. back
^4. The 1910 Census showed John W. Riley was a freelance carpenter, born in California to an English father & American mother. In 1920 he was a farmer with his own homestead. The 1930 Census showed he had married in 1920, and that he was a military veteran of the Spanish-American War of 1898 and of the First World War.
The McCarger family consisted of Mrs. Neila McCarger (age 50), a widow born in New York; two older married sons; Aleita, age 18; and Mercy, age 14. (Mercy was married in November 1917 and her first son was born eleven months later. Aleita married soon after 1920; she and her mother both died in 1925. Mercy lived to an old age.) I haven’t found their cousin Wesley.
The Sweetinghams were Mrs. Martha Dippel Sweetingham, age 35 (her husband was an oil engineer), and Regina E., age 13. There were also two younger children who did not go on this camping trip. Martha’s brother, Albert Dippel, was a year older than she, and married with children. He was an automobile factory inspector back in Detroit, so his visit must have been short. back
^5. LOL (they sat awhile). back
^6. Rae and Albert are from the U.S. Midwest states, but anything east of California is East. back
^7. Likely it was a heavy cabinet-mounted Singer sewing machine, the kind with creaky little wheels on the cabinet. back
^8. Hardly anybody had indoor plumbing in that area at that time period. back
^9. Orr Sang, age 52, was a farmer. He had been married in Ohio in 1892. He died in 1945. back
^10. One of their favorite authors, Harold Bell Wright was born in New York, educated in Ohio, became a pastor in Missouri and then Redlands, California, and gave up the ministry to live in El Centro, California and devote his life to writing novels. One of his most famous, The Winning of Barbara Worth, is set in the Imperial Valley just south of where Rae lived. back
^11. See a description of this book at https://gibsongirl247.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/donts-for-girls-a-manuel-of-mistakes/. back
^12. You can download a pdf or other version of this book here: http://www.forgottenbooks.com/books/Marion_Harlands_Complete_Etiquette_a_Young_Peoples_Guide_to_Every_1000038364. back
^13. The verb “to hoover” was used at this time to mean “to clean” especially by using the Hoover vacuum cleaner, invented ten years before. Twelve years after this time it could mean “economizing” in reference to the Great Depression that was popularly associated with the failed economic policies of U.S. President Herbert Hoover, but it is hardly likely that Rae is using this term in that sense, even if it works for the context. back
^14. After the exposure of the Zimmerman Telegram the year before, in which it was revealed that Germany was urging the Mexican Government to attack the United States, the idea of spy activity at this time and in this place was not far-fetched at all. back
^15. A windlass is a type of winch used to haul heavy buckets of dirt up the well when digging it. back
**************************
Sandstorm Picture Credit:
http://memoirsofapsychosomatic.typepad.com/memoirs-of-a-psychosomati/2012/08/the-sandlot.html by Ivon, aka “Psycho som”.

The 1916 Wit and Wisdom of Rae Wylie

Rachel “Rae” Wylie was a young woman good at amusing her friends. I have been trying to find out more of her background, but I can’t seem to verify who she is in official records. She appears in a 1917 UCLA yearbook, but only her name and a quote by it. She may be the school teacher who is living alone in San Gorgonio, Riverside county, California, recorded on the 1920 Census. That census says she was born in Kansas about 1895. . . . but there is time and more research that can be done. Meanwhile, our Rae Wylie left Yellowstone in September 1916 and was apparently living with a family of some kind, perhaps renting a room or boarding, but not her own family. The family seems to have had some boys who were of the age to rough-house. Rae worked at a store and was completing her senior year in college.

When her friends received these letters, one wrote to another that they screamed with laughter over them. We may not catch all the jokes, but her wit is apparent throughout.


Read all ye Deaux Drops, if ye want to hear,
A tale about a Heaver’s career,
On her way homeward bound from the Geyser land,
Read, then take your pen in hand, and
Deaux Drop me a big long letter . . . . . . D. D.

Epistle to the Deaux Drops No. 1

1106 W. 77th Street.
Los Angeles, Calif.
September 17th, 1916.

Dear Beloved Deaux Drops:

“Looking at you.” Come on, let’s go and see the Daisy play. She’s a nice old girl.¹

Well, you see I am sending a family letter, as I am sure of writing to “you all” once in a while this way. Otherwise with all six it might never happen. Now, if “you all” will please pass this very valuable document on to the next one, I’ll be overcome with gratefulness.

I am so glad “you all” managed to get home safely. Oh! you railroad strike! Believe me, when I get up a strike or anything of the kind, I’ll do better than that, and when I get to running Yellowstone Park, she’s going to stay open the year round and no Dudes to bother.

To begin at the beginning of the end of the most delightful of Summers, after we saw “you all” safely deposited in your private pens on the sleeper, Lloyd and I hurried across to the other depot² and Bill. We found him, but no trace of Edna and Gula, and have never heard of them. I guess they got on the 1:30 train thinking we were on. Don’t know what they did for reservations, as we had theirs—that word is “theirs.”

Well, we next saw a notice saying our train would not leave until seven, and as we had had nothing to eat and were hungry, we went up and partook of a good supper. We returned and the bulletin board announced our train at nine so still being hungry, we ate again. This time the board said eleven thirty, and told the truth, after so many attempts. We went right to bed and conveniently had upper berths right across, which made it so nice and homelike.

The morning we spent on the observation car and observed what scenery we could find, and really did see some wonderful rocks in a canyon, the name of which I have forgotten. I neglected to say we ate breakfast first. Then came dinner, and afterwards cards all afternoon, except when we came to a town, then we got off for refreshments. Vessie, and Perla, please overlook the card part. You see not being used to Sunday, we could not be expected to know it when it came, at least without a hand organ. Then the cards were a good thing for they had pictures of the park on and really we advertised the place. Got three people to say they would go through Wylie Way next year. I really didn’t know they were cards anyway, but thought they were a collection of views Lloyd was taking home. Excuses are ended.

We ate our supper, put Lloyd off at Victorville to visit relations a day or two, and went to bed—(Had something to eat first, tho.) We got into L.A. at one-thirty, but slept till morning. I got up first and left Bill in bed, only partly dressed. The last thing he said was to wait ten minutes and we would go get breakfast, eats again, but I was headed for home, and couldn’t wait. Thus our eventful trip was ended. We are to meet Thanksgiving Holidays when the boys come home from school, and with Clara, Tillie and Nance, have a Savage reunion.

I got home in time to start for Hemet Valley at the foot of the mountains. The folks were nearly ready to start, so I shook out my dirty clothes out of my suit case, put them in again, and started. It is a ride of over a hundred miles. We went to Riverside on the electric where Mr. Calderwood met us with his car and took us the last thirty miles. It is a beautiful country, with oranges, olives, and almond groves.

Mr. Calderwood has a ranch, but lives in Hemet, a pretty little town. We had everything good to eat, watermelon, casabas , oranges, white grapes big as your head, almonds, ripe olives, and everything. Also five picnics with fried chicken and all the other extras. We went auto riding every day too, and that was great.

Came home Friday and went down to the store to see the girls, and they want me to go to work Saturday. Really, I am so spoiled I don’t think I could ever work in that old store again. I stayed until Wednesday, and school began then, thank goodness.

School is great, only I haven’t done any thinking for so long it makes my head ache. Then our first class is at eight. That makes me leave here at seven and get up early. Cruel world, I wish I were dead. I have fallen in love with a bald headed professor, but he happens to be married and is true to his wife, and don’t return my affections. Cruel world again. If I don’t flunk I guess I am really going to get to finish Normal³ this year. Then hurrah for school next year in the good old North. I keep knocking on wood most of the time about finishing Normal, and getting the school.

Just think, only eight more months and twenty eight days until time to go back to Yellowstone. School is not out until June 21st, but we should worry about a little thing like that.

Perla and Vessie, please do not read.

This afternoon I took our boys and some of the neighbor’s boys out for a car ride.⁴ They disturb the neighbors Sunday naps so I was in the notion. Such a time as I had and they had. They even threw each other’s caps out of the window, so the conductor had to stop the car, and they threw orange peelings at him when he got off to rescue the lost property. It’s a wonder we were not all arrested.

Have you all started in to church yet? I have gone two mornings, but not to Sunday School yet. Am going at it gradually. Next Sunday I spend with one of the girls, so will be excused. The Young Folks have a social here Friday night. There is also an affair at the Church Thursday night, so life is not as dead as it might be.

The pictures I took at Gibbon and elsewhere are good, with the exception of the one on top of Hotel Utah. You had better get Perla’s of that group. (Be sure to send Bee one.) I will have prints made for you all, dear hearts.

The candy I brought home with me is disappearing rapidly, only one more box left, but it is the three pound one. I hope punch boards are still in style next Summer. Oh! for one good old throw with the dice box.⁵

Well, do write soon all of you, and tell me any news you know of. Also of your new gowns and fall feathers, etc. I have none. I hope, Dick, you get the baby’s clothes all made in time to get it started into school.⁶

Cora, did you get your camp stool home all right? I am so provoked that I repented and took the one out of my trunk. Next Summer I will do better. Was glad to get your letter, I’ll say I was, also Dick’s and Bee’s.

I must go to let down my folding bed and crawl in. How lonesome it is with no one to talk to me in the small hours when I take a talkative spell. I miss you terribly, old bed mate, and wish you were here.

I have exceeded the speed limit on this epistle, and hope you are all good enough hikers to wade through the jungles and jump over the mistakes in your way.

I, like Dick, will lay off with the chin music, and bid you all a fond good night. The water pitchers are full, the polly’s empty⁷, my face is washed, and as soon as Gordon and Phil are gone and the bears have finished their midnight feed at the garbage cans, I will peacefully sleep until morning. It’s Mart’s morning on, and I don’t have to be up until six. So good night.

With oodles and oodles of love to the best bunch what ever was,

Your Sister,
Rae.

If any of you see Edna Parkinson, will you find out what became of her? She does not have my address, nor I hers.


Los Angeles Calif.
Oct. 1, 1916

Dear Adorable Mother, –

I’ll say you are that. Well what do you know? I was quite upset with all kinds of enjoyableness at receiving your letter, also the pictures. Curses on those two hotel girls who cut in on the picture in front of the Curio Store. Didn’t know much, did they? Not even enough to fasten up the tail ends of their aprons.

Business first—as to those prints, I am sorry to disarrange any of your plans of disposing of them but I am afraid they are mine. Would be delighted to have one of Fergie. Am sending you some which I thought you might want. You know “you all” said to send anything I thot you might want. The business session is closed—now on with the dance.

Clara & Tillie arrived last week & were out here Sun. afternoon & evening. Went flower swiping in the afternoon & came off victorious with oodles of beautiful roses, pansies, and roses. Kept the kids in the evening while Aunt Anna went to church. Clara played all her old dance tunes and I longed to skim along over the glassy Geyser dancing hall in the arms, (or rather on the feet of) the barber and the wood cutter. Nance & her sister are in Long Beach & I have not seen them yet. The “Samples” went to San Diego & will be back this week and can hardly wait until they get back.

School is great and the professor is still bald headed. I have my affections at present centered on another, (fickle woman) a boy in the A Four Arith. class which we observed all week. He is a darling and I think I make some startling jumps in my love affairs. I still love the Prof. too tho’.

Friday night the young folks of our church came out here for a time, we had it and so horrified the weather that it rained that night. Our first rain & so early that it will likely prove disastrous to the citrus crops. Last year we had no rain until after Thanksgiving.

This morning I had to wade water over my shoes or pumps to get to church. Now if I take a cold I will consider it a warning not to attend church any more & act accordingly. I went to S.S. too for the first time. If I had waited until church time the water might had had time to run away, I shall not go to SS. again.

As to clothes, I don’t believe in paying so much for shoes oh! no—but there are some things necessary in this world that you have to do away with your beliefs to get. I have a terrible weakness for shoes as you know & have a $6.50 pair picked out. They are white tops with black patent leather bottoms & black buttons. Can see them a mile some classy. Then I am going to get a big droopy black hat and dark blue suit with two waists. One fussy filmy white one & a dark silk of some kind more serviceable. Am having my red silk poplin made over with gold trimmings for sort of an evening dress. Have plenty of clothes for school & my pink brides maid dress for evening & my white coat. Also my long dark coat no guess that is all I will be able to do for my country. I want a white wool suit so badly, you know we can wear them here all summer. Now if my finances only hold out I’ll be happy.

Alas the candy has departed to regions unknown & I find I have developed a fondness for Hershey bars which almost leads to theft at times.

I had the nicest letter from Dad Eaton and I answered it right away before he would leave Gardiner and join his wife at Livingston where they live this winter. He was wishing I was up there with them & so do I.

Orville is decidedly homesick for the park too. It helps to find others in the same position.

Where is Allan? I want to know all about him and when this affair is to come off. You should tell your daughter if you are going to present her with a new father.

Well I must close. The boys are having cowboys rides on chairs by the table and where they upset & knock the table I and my letter writing come to grief. Write soon dear honey bunch and I’ll do you the very great honor of sending you a private letter again from honor. With geysers full of love,

Rae.


Los Angeles, Calif.
Oct. 1st, 1916.

Dear Caugheys:

Enclosed will you be pleased to find the pictures I promised. Now, girls dear, I only sent one of each, and if you each want one, you know I’ll upset in my efforts to get it to you. Also, Perla, I can’t find all my films so could not get prints of one or two you wanted. If, however, they ever show up, “Then I’ll remember you.”

How are you, dear hearts? I washed my head, it is improved tho’ still wet, and I feel real spry for an old lady.

Tomorrow I suppose Vessie will be telling all the young hopefuls of Yellowstone National Park, its wonders, curiosities and differences in general from the civilized world. How she visited all the dark places with Gordon the evening guide, how she danced with the wood cutter, that famous dancer, and visited the kitchen in search of—well anything she could get. Then for an object lesson a piece of wood somewhat decayed will aid them greatly in seeing and understanding the process of rotten logging.

I am attending Normal and getting all kinds of ideas. But, oh! their one idea seems to be that we go there to work, and how hard it is after three months of idleness and blissful unconsciousness of unpleasant duties.

Vessie, please give my love to Gordon, when you write, and tell him I still take orders for chaperonage. If he cannot supply me with a position, maybe he can give me a recommendation that will be useful.

If you are writing to Earl Seward, will you please remind him that I want those pictures he took the day we went over the formation. He can either send them by way of you or direct, but don’t think he knows my address. Must have the pictures at all costs, very very necessary to my religion.

How do you like life by this time? I am becoming more contented, but think I am really spoiled for life that is any kind of life but the real life. Oh! you.

Tomorrow I have to get up in front of one of my classes and give an account of a geographical reading. Well I’ve got my reading but can’t find the place I read about on any map whatever. Have decided to settle the difficulty by placing it in India, hoping that our teacher won’t be as well acquainted with that country that she will know the difference. We have to use a map in our description, and the dear only know it’s got to be somewhere.

If I get corrected at the finish I will at least find out where it should be, and my report will add variety to the others by being different. It will be different alright. How I dread the performance.

The boys are driving horses made of chairs, and when the horses get reckless and collide with the table I and my letter writing come to grief, as you may have noticed. I get a kinsetic (?)⁸ sensation which results in an imaginary visual sensation of the boys in bed, and the sense of speech is startlingly awakened. Please observe the Psychology, it’s quite a new and terrible thing to me.

Well I must close and write to Cora. I am sending you all private letters with the pictures, and from now on I’ll probably resort to family ones.

Write soon and tell me all your troubles. Be good sweet maids, and you’ll be clever, if you’re good long at a time. With lots of love, yea verily loads of it, I am,

Your loving sister,
Rae.

I am not taking penmanship yet, not until next term. These flourishes are entirely original and done the Wylie Way.


[Undated; had to have been written the second week of November 1916]:

Epistle to the Deaux Drops #2
As it might have Been or May Be.

The six best maids in creation
Landed at Yellowstone station
Two were short, one was tall,
Two were wide, one was small,
They had come for a summer vacation.
Their faces were withered and worn
So soon they had risen that morn,
But they smiled with a will
As we hope they do still,
May they never grow old or forlorn.
Life often the best of plans missles
Its pathway has thorns and has thistles,
But how each managed her plan
To capture a man
Will be told in my later Epistles.

Wylie Way Official Bulletin
Time until June 1917 migration –
7 MONTHS East 0 days West 2 days

My dear sisterettes: --

Writing to you with my feet on a chair rung and the rest of me on my little bed. I have taken to sitting on soft things lately as I am the proud and unhappy possessor of a boil which greatly hinders my rising up and my sitting down. An untimely jolt of the street car and a most undignified collapse on my part, did, it is true, end the real life of the said brute but still it continues at times to be master of the situation, consequently, the bed and any very sudden exclamations. I hope it soon finds out I am no relative of Job’s and will tolerate no such foolishness and take its departure. Otherwise I am in perfect condition. School is very hard, but as I have gained one half pound and no one sympathises with a fat person, I get very little consolation in my troubles.

I cannot say enough in condemnation of the California school system. It is work, work, work, night and day and then “I do wish you could find time to do a little more reading on whether Adam had a Moses apple” or vice versa, however it goes. That’s all we hear. Vessie, I’m with you dog gone it. However, I am learning and there is some hope for me. I know when I sit down suddenly that I react to an exterior stimulus which rises in the bi-polar neurone passes through other neurones, enters the spinal ganglion also cord. From there the impulse travels through medulla oblongata to motor and kinsetic regions of the cerebrum, skips back and forth through various association centers and finally I awake to the fact that I have a kinsetic sensation, or in plain English, my boil is affected. To do away with such kinsetic and cutaneous sensations I must inhibit my movements and react in such a way that certain localities of my body shall not come in contact with sudden or hard objects and thus prevent any external stimulus to overthrow my equilibrium.

Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the great student of Psychology, a study never intended for human beings, either in this world or in the next.

But life is not all so dull as it might seem. We have music in our little bungalow to-night. Kenneth takes music lessons and is now playing the C. scale for the thirtieth some time and we are looking forward to the time when he shall know it well enough to appear in public.

Also, I have enjoyed your letters so much that I will not tire you by dwelling on the subject, but hope you will keep up the good work. No Perla, I have no objections to your writing twice to my once. I really think things in heaven will be run on that plan. The poems were good and I have been wanting them, too. Clara and Tillie spent most of an evening over them. Bee, your magazine was sure great and cute as it could be. You certainly do have a bright head on you and I’m sorry that after sleeping with you all summer my dome doesn’t contain more knowledge. I haven’t shown it to Clara or Nance, yet, as I haven’t seen them since it came, but I hope I’m to be the one what gets it for keeps. If any of you all back there want it, you’ve done gone got to come after it.

Then there was Dick’s answer to my last letter, and such a long one. However did you get time to write it? Believe me, it was, and still is, out of sight.

Before I forget, who in thunder is “Cody”? I don’t remember any such personage and you all talk like I should know he, she or it. I’m curious, and as curiosity once killed a cat, please let me know soon.

You sure do make me feel fidgety when you talk about your gatherings back there. Then I hear from the Newcastle girls and they tell me Cora and Spooks were running around loose up there and they gathered them in and fed them. I sure would like to go in like sixty on one of the Deaux Drop kimono parties or mogie raids. But poor Bee, you are worse off by yourself than I am for I have Clara and Nance and we get together and talk. Then, too, we are going to have a reunion about Thanksgiving time cause Bill Litchfield said so, and he don’t tell stories. He’s afraid he’ll ruin his social position.⁹

Well, last Sunday Clara and Nance were out, and as house life is too tame for savages, we went down to Exposition Park where the soldiers are stationed until they have been sufficiently examined to be sent home. There are a lot of them there and very friendly people they are, so much so that we soon found ourselves escorted into a tent kitchen and there we dined on oysters and various foods, among them Hard tack. Nuff ced. If the suffragettes do finally take this country, I’ll never join the army. Of course we couldn’t stay off the subject, Yellowstone for any length of time and here to my joy we found one of the soldiers an ex-swaddie from the Park. We nearly embraced him and he got out all the pictures he had taken on the border and we were so interested that it got dark before we knew it. We had to hurry home like good girls and I sailed into the house with my head in the air over the good time I had had only to be brought suddenly to earth. There sat a girl and she very gently broke the news that she had come to take me to Christian Endeavor and to Church. I did the only polite thing under the circumstances, I went. But we will return to the soldiers.

It is interesting to watch them take evening drill and line up and get their meals, but there are other things much more interesting to be found, especially outside the camp. O you rotten logging. Think they must have had a course at Yellowstone. Of course there are no logs or nice benches by a river but street corners and curbstones seem to answer the purpose just as well. Beautiful work was being accomplished on all hands and an audience was or is no drawback whatever. The high school girls are taking advantage of their opportunities and I was surprised to find how weak the growing generation seems to be, as many of them require such touching assistance to walk about the streets. But California evenings are really cool enough for coats of arms or anything else that is convenient.

The Saturday before Tillie went home (She couldn’t get work and left. If you didn’t know, you do now.) I didn’t have to work at the store and Tillie, Clara and I went out to Universal city to investigate the moving picture process. We saw them take parts of several pictures, one, a wild west scene and when they got done with the saloon we got out in front with some cowboy ponies and had Fatty¹⁰ take our pictures. I’m sure you have seen Fatty in pictures. He is his name and then some. This day he had on a woman’s apron. We got his pictures but he wouldn’t stand still for a good one. All that helped us was his size. He couldn’t move fast enough to entirely spoil the picture. . . . . . . . . . We stayed as usual until dark came and came home in a car¹¹ with some of the movie people. One of them, Harry Mann, whom you have no doubt seen in villain parts told Clara and I the next time we went out to send him a card the day before and he would see we got a pass in and show us around in places where visitors were not allowed. That was where he made one big mistake for we are going to take him up on it.

Going out to Lady Mac’s some day too. She was at church the other day and I could hug her to pieces . . . . . . . Well I suppose you were excited over the election. I forgot women could vote in California, didn’t register and lost out. They tried to get California dry¹² this time and that was more exciting than the other. The Saturday before election the Drys had a big parade, three hours long. Latest way to measure parades. It was very good, but as we were working on the tenth floor at the store and the head lady was wet, we didn’t even get to look out of the windows. Nearly every one on the floor was wet and I felt like telling them they needed attention. . . . . . . .

Wonder what Yellowstone would be like if it went dry. I’m afraid poor old Daisy would miss some of her visitors.¹³ I’d sure vote wet there, for think of the candy I received from people who were not in their right minds. . . . . . . . . .

Those pictures you all want will come to you soon. Helen Wilson wrote for my films and I sent them to her, every last one of them. She will send them to some of you and you can send them on to Bee. There is no hurry for them and they might as well spend the winter in the east.

I wish, please Bee, if I be good, that I might have another one of Uncle Roy where he is talking to people out on the formation. I’m mad, too cause I didn’t hear from him. I’m going to get busy and write to every one I know and see what happens. So far I have written only to you and two post cards. Some correspondence. I’m sorry Bee that I have no new love affairs to relate. I have even outgrown the old ones. Think maybe I have one in process of construction and will let you know if it develops. I sympathise with you you know, and say, will you please inform me just what kind of letter I am to write that your family will not read. The idea of scolding me for putting things in a letter they could read. How am I going to tell you any other way. Guess I had better write you a private epistle and tell you what I think of you. You know young lady you might need a hot water bottle in the night next summer and I may not get it for you. &&&&&

With Lots and Lots and Lots and Lots and Lots of love, one lot for each of you.
Your most dignifidest sister
Rae.

****************
^1. What her date said to Bee at Yellowstone one night as she started to realize how drunk he was.↩
^2. This was in Salt Lake City.↩
^3. The California State Normal School in Los Angeles became UCLA in 1919. In 1916 – 1917 it was mostly a teacher training college.↩
^4. On the streetcars.↩
^5. Punch boards and dice games were some of the things Rae sold in the Yellowstone camp store; customers who won sometimes bought her a box of candy.↩
^6. Dick (Dorothy) Loeffler had become an aunt again recently.↩
^7. I could not find what this meant, but I think it was probably a chamber-pot, one of those “unmentionables” Rae delights in shocking her audience by mentioning.↩
^8. She probably meant “kinesthetic”—to do with tactile sensation.↩
^9. Bill’s fear for his social position was a running joke at Yellowstone.↩
^10. Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, a famous comedian; he may have been filming The Butcher Boy in which Arbuckle invited 21-year-old comedic genius Buster Keaton to make his film debut. (Arbuckle’s previous film had been released in June 1916.)↩
^11. A streetcar.↩
^12. During passage of the 18^th Amendment (Prohibition), “dry” states voted for the Amendment, and “wet” states voted against it.↩
^13. Bee famously allowed herself to be taken out one night to see Daisy by a man who she discovered was very drunk, and her fellow Deaux Drops were not supposed to tell.↩