Sunday, September 13, 1925

Sunday, September 13, 1925
Rain

Dick and Dale went to Sunday school and walked up town to catch a car coming home. Albert seemed to feel okay today. Bess spent the afternoon with us. Happened to be in the town to the dentist’s. It just poured rain all afternoon and left us all depressed and the kids were surely cross. Ned got in the mud twice, and dirtied four rompers today. Oh, the laundry bill!

(Bess (Clara Bessie) was one of Gilbert’s two older sisters. The other sister was Nell (Nellie May). Bess’s story is a bit sad. She was married once, briefly, but the marriage was annulled when they found out her husband already had a wife on the East cost somewhere. She never re-married, and ended up in the Marion County Guardian’s home in her old age, where she died in 1970 of “a heart attack which caused a fall and head injuries, with internal bleeding”. She was 82 years old when she died. Link here for a picture of Bess with a solider. We do not know if that is who she married. I’ve also added a new picture of Bess, one of Nell, and also one of Gilbert and his parents and sisters, probably taken in the mid 1890’s to the companion picture blog. Gilberts’ mother, Caroline, was 35 years old when she married his father, J.W.A. Smith, and nearly 6 years older than him.

I am sure the boys did feel a little cooped up on a rainy day. After all, what was there to do? No TV, video games, Internet, etc. I guess they had to play games, read, draw, talk to one another, etc. and apparently occasionally go outside and get dirty.)

(You may want to go back and read yesterdays' diary entry and comments, more info was added late about Ray & Anna Mock and their two daughters, Betty & Wilma.)