From Gauss and his Children

Contents 1 Letter 2 Source 2.1 Transcriber's Notes 3 References

Letter

524 W. Elsmere Place
San Antonio 12 Texas
7 February 1962

Dear Minna:

I received the books and of course we were very much interested in them. When I have a chance will make you and Lois some better copies. You do not owe me any thing. What about that huge postage you had to pay! I feel that these are some of the books that Anne so patiently poured over and copied the high points but we will go through and see what or if she did not copy something we might want. Anyway we will let you know. Sylvia and her mother got a big kick out of it and I understand that there will be parts of it copied in the Fort Sam newspaper, the part about Fort Sam, he does not call it that however, he calls it the government property, or fort.

Emma and her family enjoyed it also although I have not had any reports from the Warren Johns family, I sent one copy to his wife which will also do for the daughter, Shirley, and her family and one copy to Herndon and his wife in Dallas. Ann, Warren's wife, lives in Cameron, Texas, with Shirley and her husband, Dr. Clifford Swift. Shirley's twin daughters were married last year but she still has a son going to college. Both of the girls finished some sort of course but not what they started to do, time and the young men interfered with that, I guess. Besides the money they had put aside to educate the children was only worth half as much but they would have gone ahead anyway, one of them was to be a school teacher and the other was taking a technical course at Baylor. The boy, Clifford is still in school, I suppose he will follow in his father's footsteps. Clifford is very much older than Shirley but they get along fine and he has a good practice. Another important thing, he and Ann get along fine although she is not dependent upon him, but it is nice to have folks to live with.

Emma looked well, we visited with her for about three hours, She and her two sisters from Beaumont and brother, Tom, from Houston, were going to Austin to see another sister and have lunch and spend the night in Austin. They have several relatives in Austin. Most of them have too much money for their own good. Emma is a fine person and very gracious and sweet. She puts up with a lot from Jack, I am sure. He is very plain spoken and grouchy at times. But he is a Johns man, that is it, I guess.

Am sure you would enjoy meeting these people although we see them just about once a year. Sylvia lives here, of course.

I am sending you what I found out about the Major Johns and if you know anything about the Tennessee branch of the family, let me know. Mrs. Leathers asked me to write to two Jones brothers in Virginia, both bachelors, who live on the old Jones property, lots of it. She found that out last year and is just telling me about it. Could not get to it for lack of directions but was told they are both college graduates and drunkards. Their home is full of family heirlooms, just lots of rosewood furniture and they have a Bible record. A man who keeps a store close by told her when they are not drunk they are very pleasant. I hardly expect to hear from them.

Yes, I copied the dates from the sheets you sent me. If they would stop calling me back to the office and I could get over this virus infection I would be better off and could do more.

Thanks again and will let you know. Hope you both are well,

Love
Florence

Source

Typewritten original in the private collection of the Chambless family. Transcribed to softcopy by Susan D. Chambless, February 4, 2000.

Transcriber's Notes

References