February 24, 1980
Little Rock, Ark.

Dearest Ron, Ann & Susanna, Rick & Ricky and Roy,

This has been a busy week-end and it's late Sunday evening so this will be short letter. Our Regional Representative, Lee Miller, came in Friday afternoon and stayed until noon Saturday and then I had Stake Relief Society Board Meeting all afternoon and then today we left the house at 7 a.m. to go to Jacksonville for two Ward conference and got home about 3:30 and went to our Sacrament meeting at 4. There are a lot of questions about this new "consolidated meeting schedule" and it will take a little while to get things going.

First of all - Ron, you did an excellent job of taking pictures of the funeral proceedings for Aunt Marvel - we got the pictures back yesterday and they are so good - we're glad to have them. Also, some of the pictures we took of Susanna while she was here are so cute and the ones of Ricky and Susanna are good. Utah looks so cold with all the snow in the pictures but it really was Winter.

Jeannie - We received your wonderful letter yesterday and we are so happy to hear that little Ricky is doing good - I can just imagine what a relief that must be to him to not have all that pain and also to be able to hear things he had heard before - I'm sure that would have had a real effect on his learning if that hadn't been corrected. The way you are going to have your ring fixed sounds great - I am really surprised to find out that jewelers won't give anything for the gold in rings like that and Daddy took his wedding ring in and they told him about the same thing - it had to be cut off his finger because it was too small and I wanted him to have it fixed - they told him that if he were to buy that ring bow he would have to pay at least $300 for it but they would only give him $30 for the gold in it - it doesn't make sense! The same with dental gold - they will only give $5 for the gold in a gold crown but if they make a new crown it costs $400!!!! We're also thrilled about your microwave oven - we couldn't live without ours now and I know how great they must be with baby food and formula. We're anxious to hear what develops with Rick's working territory and we're happy he is enjoying the accounting part of his work.

Roy - we looked for a letter from you this week - but we know you are really busy. The saddest thing happened - do you remember Glen Short? The Shorts were really our first Little Rock friends - they lived right in back of us and they had boys near the ages of Bob and Roy - they gave us "Reb" if you remember and Glen and Wayne short played baseball with Bob and Roy. Well - last Tuesday evening someone shot him and killed him - it happened in his apartment and he was found by his girl friend. He evidently was a route salesman for some company and would collect every Tuesday and would have large sums of money on him - someone (and they don't have any leads) must have been hidden in his bedroom when he came home and they shot him in the back with a large gun. I was at Central about a month ago and saw Ann Short in the teacher's lounge and we visited for the longest time and compared notes about our "boys". We are just sick about it!!!! We surely hope that school is going good - you'll be ready for a rest come Summer.

We had a letter from Mother and Daddy - it was written by Mother and she wrote one letter that she said were "Daddy's words" and it was a nice letter though a little and then she wrote one with here words and she really has ill feelings towards us. There isn't anything that can be done or said until the property is evaluated and we find out how much inheritance tax is going to have to be paid - they think that I can just outright give Dee half of my share and he will be rich - they don't seem to understand that some of it is going to have to be sold nor do they understand all that is involved in giving things like that. It has upset both Daddy and I very much but as Lynn says, "We're not going to roll over and play dead" while they do what they want and say what they want.

John went on a Boy Scout camp out this week-end - they went to Cove Creek which is the new boy scout camp north of Little Rock - he had a wonderful time. He is doing really well in school but will be happy for Spring Break the last of March. I have taught every day this month so far - I don't believe I will teach this week - I'm tired!!!!

We're going to town to mail this and get an ice cream cone - we had pancakes for ....
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