Marcia Kirwan Standley Papers

Sun. 5-24-59

Dear Mother & Daddy,

Well, the house deal is in the machine. We're waiting on the FHA appraiser. They come in "3 to 6 weeks" ~ no appointment, no E.T.A. We're leaving the key with the lady across the street.

Today we got a free rug, a 12x15 [?] wool tweed in a restful green, It's a little worn & dirty, because they never bothered to turn it. It's nice & warm though, & will tide us over until we finish chopping down walls & re-arranging doors, & are ready to put the cork tile down. Bare hardwood floors are a little too rugged for Pooh. I bought some lamps, too. One of the girls at work is moving to Arizona, & since her family is in the furniture business, they're planning to buy all new stuff when they get to Ariz. This place is really going to be havoc while we're remodeling. We're going to concentrate on the outside this summer, mainly filling th lot, moving the fence out for a bigger back yard, & rasing the garage floor & driveway.

July 5, 1959

Dear Mother & Daddy,

Seems like the letters get farther apart every time. Our days are pretty long, & we try to spend as much time with Pooh as we can. If anything, she's thriving on the schedule, though her parents are pretty beat. We are really looking forward to our vacation & getting away from all the hustle. I've worn shoes more in the last six months that I have in the last couple of years, & that's a bad habit to get into. There is a great deal to be done before we can take off in a carefree manner, especially with this house deal in the machine. The man at the bank is very pessimistic about FHA's delay, though he has speedily expedited all of the bank's part in the deal. You simply cannot rush bureaucracy.

Some people with apricot trees invited us to pick apricots last week, so five boxes later Bee & I were still canning & preserving apricots last night with 2 boxes to go. We've got close to 50 jars of canned & preserved apricots, and tonite we're giving away the last two boxed to a girl Bee met, who wants to dry them. Anyway, now I know all about canning & preserving apricots. Next year, maybe we'll try something else. One short interlude of that per year is enough.

The house deal is in the final stage. FHA has okayed the house, the bank has okayed us, & now we're waiting for FHA to approve of us.

July 22 This letter is taking quite a bit longer than I expected. Things have been so rushed lately. I've spent all of my spare time scrounging parts for the car and performing household duties. The car is finally finished, and Jim is pretty satisfied with his job. He will probably be making little adjustments here and there for month and months, though. We have two or three other carburetors [?] another

manifold. We haven't decided which one we really want on the car, but have stuck one on temporarily, since the others would require the fabrication of a manual choke, a project to be postponed until after our vacation. Mechanically, the car is in terrific shape, like new. It's appearance belies this fact, however, so after the carburetor bit, we're going to put on new seat covers and paint it. It should run without complication for many more years, so we won't have to worry about extraordinary car expenses, while we fritter our money away on some of our more immediate wants. By the time we're ready for another car, we should be in a position to make an investment in line with what we want. None of this nothing down and everything a month jazz.

Pooh is apparently cutting some more teeth. She's drooling, chewing, and a little crankey at times. This time, it's stomache and eye teeth, or molars, so we're probably in for a bigger hassle than we had with her 8 other little pearls. I hope that she doesn't decide to have problems when we're on the road. The arrangment we're planning for the back seat should keep her plenty happy while we're driving along in a cloud of playtex disposable diapers. Her introduction to the potty chair is still going along with caution. What usually happens is that she takes a nap in training pants, wakes up dry, gets put on the potty chair, gets impatient listening to the water in the washbowl, gets up and starts to play, and minutes later leaves a puddle on the floor. This is pretty permissive potty training, and I'm sure that at this rate, we will not do her any emotional damage at her tender age. Until she decides to do otherwise, she can still pretend that the potty is for putting both feet in and falling over. She now feeds herself with a spoon most of the time. She is very resistant to other arrangements. At mealtime, it's simplest to do away with bibs, and just put her in a pair of training pants period, and work her over with a dish rag later. Her stomach is arranged in such a way that little food waste is necessary. While she's feeding herself, I can take another spoon and scrape the food off of her stomache and put it back in the bowl.

Your nice birthday card and check arrived. Thank you very much for both. Jim is taking me shopping tomorrow night. Just going with him will be fun, since he has been spending so much time working lately. Now we can relax and enjoy ourselves. We can put your gift to good use, especially at this time. I'm pretty satisfied with what I have to show for 23 years, I hope that the next23 are as much funas present expectations predict.

Well, I guess that I'd better wind this up and mail it before I end up bringing it with us. It's pretty definite that we will be leaving Palo Alto on either the night of July 30 or Aug first. The 'either or' part has to do with our being ready. Now that I look at the calendar, I begin to panic at how close the date has moved. It's time to start listing things to do. From here, we plan to head straight for Beverly Hills, so now you have an idea of when to expect us.

Thank you again for your birthday gift, BOTH of you. We will be seeing you soon.

Love, Marcia

12-7-59 to 12-23-59

Dear Mother & Daddy,

We made it - rocker & all. No traffic & Pooh slept all the way - almost. She woke up right on schedule at 5:45 A.M. as we were going through Santa Clara. She finished the trip in the front seat, telling Cindy all about life in Palo Alto. Everything arrived safe & sound. The Hakata dolls are safely ensconced temporarily in the shelves of the buffet. They look great!

Since getting back we've done next to nothing except basic maintenance. Jim has been trying to finish the Jupiter, but every time he finishes something they discover some horrible mistake made by the butchers who previously worked on it. Jim was only supposed to wire it, but so far he's practically rebuilt the engine, & the exhaust & electrical systems.

By the way, I will only order you one

Rich Moisture Suds, because after Christmas, it will be in some pretty good sales. That's the time to stock up on basic things.

We are still looking forward to using our [Koyota?] Kooker. Jim set it all up, & it fits beautifully on the hearth. As soon as I get some good charcoal & we decide what to cook, I'll let you know how it turns out. Last night, I made enchiladas from a recipe given me by a girl at work. They were terrific & after two apiece, we were stuffed. They freeze & reheat beautifully, & since the recipe is for 12, it's like having TV dinners on hand, only much better. The girl kept telling me that she'd make anchiladeys for dinner, & when I finally figured out what she meant, I asked for the recipe. I checked it out with one of my clients who is

an ace with Mexican recipes. (She grinds her own chilis on a stone handed down for so many generations, they don't count any more.) She gave it her stamp of approval. What I really wanted to know was how she made her sauce, since The recipe calls for "1 large can of Las Palmas sauce." My client & the other ladies of the Mexican community also use Las Palmas sauce, so it must be just like downtown. Tastes fine!

We really enjoyed everything about our Thanksgiving in Beverly Hills. The turkey was fabulous, as was the rest of the food. Pooh's new clothes are lovey & drip-dry, & she really enjoys Cindy - the dolls, the fine barbeque equipment, the rocker, the tools & every thing else are just great. Thank you very much for all the nice things you both did. I hope you

6

Thank you for your letter about the car, Daddy. I can see that you're going to be firm about this thing. I wish you could understand us. Kevin called to say that the only time he had open to bring it down here was around 3:00 AM, between parties, so Jim told him we'd go up there sometime after the first of the year. We appreciate your thought of Pooh's future. We will sell it before it depreciates anymore & put the money in Pooh's savings account (41/2 % insured by FDIC) for eventual investment in a growth stock like Sears Roebuck, [Henseal?] Foods or Studebacker Packard. Soon we may be able to get a deal on Hewlett - Packard stock, $10 below market per share. Thank you very much for your generosity. Pooh & all her proposed siblings also thank you.

Pooh just awoke to a dissapointing sight. We didn't pick up the living room for her to mess up again, so she is reduced to chasing Jeff around with a bottle of catsup & assorted canned goods.

Love Marcia, also Jim & Pooh

Jan 20, 1960

Dear Mother & Daddy,

The chair cover arrived, & I'm still trying to figure out how it will look with the sponge rubber in it. At first fit, it looks okay, but I want to mess around with it before I make up my mind.

Jim has been stealing time, here & there to go over the red Merc. So far he has replaced the u-joints which were ready to go any minute, and has disconnected one side of the double fuel pump, where most of the oil was going. As soon as he can find a good used pump, he'll replace it. Jim gets a lot of good used parts free, because people very often insist on replacing perfectly good parts, either from habit, or for reasons that have no bases in fact. The brakes are good, but the master cylinder will need a hit because it leaks fluid back to the wheels. He fixed the radio with a new vibrator. The tappets

are way out of adjustment, & the plugs are shot. The latter can easily be replaced with some slightly used ones. With adjusted tappets and good u-joints, the motor should run 100% more quietly, & the fuel pump should solve part of the oil-burning problem. The paint is bad, how bad we won't know until we clean off the oxide & wax it. Too bad Kevin didn't keep it waxed when it stood outside. It needs a little body work in several places. The transmission is A-1, a very important selling point.

The weather has run the gamut between heavy frost, fog & rain over the last couple of weeks. We had some very cold sunshine last weekend. The trouble is that it keeps Pooh indoors too much. She keeps busy enlarging her vocabulary, most of it intelligible. She "plays" potty quite a bit, but seldom uses it for the real thing.