Friday July 25

Had supper with Nettie
and all evening at home

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This is Papa's second dinner in a row with his sister Nettie, which is slightly unusual but really only notable because he received news the day before of their family's troubles in the old country. At first I figured Papa and Nettie might have talked about it the previous evening and gotten together again to continue their conversation, but on second thought I'd be kind of surprised if this was the case. Unless Nettie got her own distressing letter from Europe, Papa would have protected her from such worrisome news -- with two sickly children and a husband who had trouble staying employed, she had problems of her own. (Papa had kept bad news from her before, most notably back in May when he decided not to tell her their father had died just after her son was born.)

So why two dinners in a row? Maybe Papa just felt the need to see Nettie a little more since the siblings he couldn't visit were on his mind. Then again, I could be trying to dig too much out of this entry. They might have gotten together the second time for no real reason or because she happened to have some extra soup on the stove when he stopped by. Sometimes a dinner is just a nice dinner.