File:Erica (Thorp) de Berry to Joseph Gilbert Thorp Jr., 12 April 1917 (897b0d35-8735-4c07-858f-63f3c360471b).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1006/004.006.002-005#012

[printed letterhead: Pine Mountain Settlement School]
April 12th.
Dearest Papa
The Easter presents were so much appreciated! Thank you from us all and from the children who share one of them at select “parties” in my room It’s so delicious!
How much has happened since you left, and what a changed atmosphere you must have plunged into! I suppose everything now is bustling with mobilization and organization. It’s so hard to be away from it, and all the decisions about enlisting and preparation. Sometimes it seems as if I couldn’t wait six weeks
[written cross on L margin and top]
All around fathers & brothers & kinfolk are leaving. “Lord, lord!” said Alenon’s[?] gran’maw to us “but’s a troublesome thing to study about!” And indeed comes as close here now, as anywhere.
Best of love, Bun.
(p.2) longer, and there will come the realization of what leaving this place and the children for good ^will^ means – and six weeks seems breathlessly short.
Never can I be grateful enough for that perfect week with you and Tuk! If only Mamma and Sitoo can come. I feel so dreadfully to think that Mamma may not be able to – but I realize how uncomfortable and difficult the journey and all might be.
The children speak of you all the time and send their love; and at Aunt Sal’s they’re still “bragging” about you. William at my elbow, says he wants you to “come back pretty soon and get to stay here till next year”. At table the other day we
[printed letterhead: Pine Mountain Settlement School]
(p.3) were discussing careers, and [crossed out: I asked] Billy said he aimed to be a lawyer.
“My father’s a lawyer” said I
“He ain’t donner!” exclaimed Clara in great indignation. “He don’t put peoples in jail.”
“No”. said I.
“Then he ain’t nary lawyer!” replied Clara with finality.
I’m having great fun in Miss de Long’s room with all the boys.
What do you think – John Fox dropped in on us the other day, just as Miss Pettit, Leow[?] & Wells were about to leave for a conference! With Miss de Long away, you can imagine what a “sorry” field for information he found. But (p.4) we all did our best to entertain him, and he read us some ‘stories-in-the-making. It was great fun criticizing and censoring certain bits! Bill made a great hit with him, entertaining him on the Pole House porch with candy, etc. to soothe his ruffled feelings at having no Miss Pettit to give him plots for his stories. As a result, Bill and I have been invited to Big Stone Gap where he lives! It would be a great lark to take the trip on our way home – a day’s ride over Big & Little Black Mts. – after which “his car will meet us”.
Spring is almost entirely here now – peach trees in bloom, and mayflowers
[printed letterhead: Pine Mountain Settlement School]
(p.5) past counting. Planting’s on with a vengeance, also Spring-cleaning and general airing.
Miss Canterbury and I took the Gabe’s Branch Greasy trip last Saturday, and it was beautiful beyond words! I’m aiming to take Sitoo there for a plunge in the swirling pool beneath the falls in a wood pink with maple and wild cherry. –
Papa, do you think there’s any possible safety in crossing the ocean now? Beatrice Murray is very, very anxious to go back to England – in fact she’s determined to if it can be done without too (p.6) prohibitive a risk. Will our ships be actually safer now because of armament and perhaps naval protection? What do you think? She has [crossed out: simply] made up her mind to go, unless it’s simply running into sure death. Will it be any better – or worse – in a month or two, or can’t one predict?
The school bell is “about to rang” and I must hie me hither. We are learning the “Star-Spangled Banner” and hold the flag salute with added reverence. The children take such an intense interest in the war, and in their prayers the little ones say, “Please God make the Germanys quit sinkin’ the ships and starving the little Belgians. It, h’aint none of their business!” – and they agree that “the Germanys “ain’t got much sense, are they, Miss Forp!”
The older boys are getting restless about enlisting, and
[written cross in left margin]
they asked to have included in their evening-song “Bless the soldiers we love so well.”

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