(seq. 6)

February , 1937

Russell McWilliams,
#5661,
Box 1112, Joliet, Illinois.

Dear Russell:

It was a great privilege to see you.
My thanks are due your institution for making is possible
under quarantine conditions.

It is useless to say I regret the shortness
of our visit. It was not because I was in a hurry, but
Mrs. William F. Dummer, who is seventy had driven out
with me in her car. She is not well, and it would not have been
good for her to wait longer. She, like Clarence Darrow, has
spent her long life in service of others.

Short as our visit was it brought me great
satisfaction. Our letters are like our talk. I did not feel
strage at all. Of course, you have grown up, and it seems to
me you hae done a good job of it. No high school boy seems to
me to have as much sense as you. You have been shut away from
so many things people think worth while, but you have gained
your own soul, so to speak. Perhaps it is the hard knocks you
have taken. They destroy many, but they, or else somethig in
you yourself, have developed your character. I felt that I
was talking to an old friend, which of course you are. Many
would have grown bitter. You keep your interest in everything.

I shall try to come more often. I would
have come before, but I had not the money. The Woman's Club I
was invited to speak to paid my expenses. That speech went
pretty well. Immediately afterward I left by airplane for
Cleveland. My sister Beckke has three children. The youngest
I had not seen since she was three months old. She is a real
person. She had seen my brother recently, her Uncle Ralph,
so she called me Aunt Ralph. It is said we look alike. I know
we think alike, and children notice such things. I have two
nephews - Richard, 10, who is thoughtful and going to be a
scholar, and Jack, 6, who is going to be something big