1973 Catherine's letter - Feb. 20

Catherine and X make plans to move to Maine after X is offered a job in Sanford as Library Director. The trip to Joliet was most memorable in retrospect for something I did not mention in the letter – being stopped by the police while out for an early morning walk. They told me it was not common to see pedestrians at that hour.   Transcription follows.

Tuesday, February 20, 1973

Dear Mom, Dad, Serena, John and Mary,

Hi!  We've been busy, busy, busy as I imagine you have been too.  There is an unending amount of things that we need to take care of before we leave Michigan.   Plus we went to visit Bruce and Beth in Joliet over the weekend (we combined business with pleasure as we also had to go to the Univ. of Illinois for some library research on New Zealand libraries) While in Joliet we discovered there was to be a Grateful Dead (that's a rock group) concert at the International Aphitheatr [sic] on Monday night so we stayed over for that and didn't get home until 3:30 A.M.  Back to the library, they have a new one which is really something -- 7 floors all filled with stacks and reading areas.  You have to have an I.D. to get on any floor other than the 1st.  We were able to get day passes with our W.M.U. I.D.'s.

Dad, I need to know how much my Mohasco cost so that I can figure out the tax on the capital gain.  I can't believe our income tax.  It wouldn't be so bad if they had taken out enough so that I we wouldn't be hit so hard now.  I guess though, that w had the advantage of gaining interest on the money before we pay them.  We made about 8600 not counting capital gains and they only deducted 700 so we have to pay 267 plus the tax on our gains.

Another thing we need some info on is leases.  We are going to have to rent this house (it can't be sold until X's mother dies) and we would like to have whoever rents it sign a lease.

Mrs. Sheltra (whose envelope this was) is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the library.  She has offered us her assistance in finding a suitable place for us to reside at least temporarily in Sanford.  We have to be somewhat picky in that we would like a place where we could have Kuman [Irish Setter], a garden and an extra bedroom for X's Mom.  We're going to rent a U-Haul to get our stuff out there.

I am not using this because we are out of all other people paper, but because it was by the typewriter and I figured you wouldn't mind my small x scale recyclying [sic] efforts.

Bruce and Beth are getting married on March 31.  They are just having their immediate families.  They have been going together (on and off) for 9 1/2 years so it isn't much of a surprise to their families.

When are you going to go to Floriday?  Have you already gone to New York?  Have you made plans to come to Maine yet?

Love, Catherine & X