28 June 1945

3149 Newark Street, NW
Washington 8, D.C.
June 28, 1945

Dear Nannie,

Well, the house is a mess today cause Mom and Audrey are leaving tomorrow. I decided to sneak up to my room away from it all and write you a letter. Boy, was it hot today. It’s in the 80’s now, but it was much hotter this afternoon and working in a hot government office is not my idea of fun, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

When it got so hot I didn’t think I could stand it any longer my boss stood up and said right out that it was too hot to work and told me to go down and get four cokes for us. He paid for them! Nice, huh? I’m working in the Foreign Economic Administration now, incase Pop hasn’t already told you. It’s kind of interesting. I like my work, but I like the pay much better. I’m CAF-3 now, which is $1620 in peace-time, but with time and a half for overtime on Saturdays, it amounts to $1921 a year and beginning July 1, we all get a 20% raise in pay, so I’ll be getting around 2184 dollars a year pay by next week. It’ll be about $10 more a week than I got last year, which ain’t hay! I just got my income tax refund from last summer back a couple of weeks ago. I sure was glad to see that. It amounted to $41.27, which wasn’t half bad. It was a little more than I expected, I think!

I love my watch. I don’t know what I’d do without it now. I use it constantly. I’d probably be late to work every day! I’ll have my initials put on it when I come up in August. I figure on leaving about the 23rd or 25th of August. How does that sound to you? It won’t give me much time, but I don’t think I could get out any earlier than the 23rd, cause that wouldn’t even give me two months working time and I should work two months in order to get the job, I think.

Peggy is all excited about coming up. She’s a real cute girl and quite popular at school. She’s in the best sorority up there. Not that that means anything, but anyway, it’s nice.

I’ve been to Maryland University to see about getting in and about getting a room in one of the dorms. I’ve been accepted now definitely and I think a room won’t be too hard to get. The dorms are real nice. I went through most of them. One was just built for soldiers and now turned over to the girls. It’s a very nice one except that there are no closets in the place, which makes it rather uncomfortable! But they are getting these chifferobe affairs which suits the purpose quite nicely.

I went to the Shoreham Blue Room last Tuesday night, which is considered about the nicest place in Washington for dinner-dancing (and also the most expensive!) The couple that are upstairs now were celebrating their 3rd anniversary (3 months!) so they took the husband’s brother and myself to the Blue Room. He’s real cute… a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps, no less! And with the Air Medal with a gold Oak Leaf Cluster and a Silver Oak Leaf Cluster (which represents about 12 of them altogether!!) and the Distinguished Flying Cross, which very few received! He’s been to quite a few places in the Pacific and just think.. he was turned down by the regular army to begin with because of a shortened leg! Shows what some of the 4-F’s are like! Anyway, I had lots of fun there. We had Squab with dressing and Wild Rice, and Frenched String Beans, milk, rolls (no butter, even in that place!) celery and olives, Papyya juice (which comes from the South Seas, so I’ve heard. At least my date had had some, wild, in New Guinea). It was very good. Unusually sweet, but a little like orange juice. For desert I had something that ended with “Frappe”, which I thought was some sort of a French custard, or ice, or something, but which turned out at last to be a small glass of Creame de Mint, a liquore. We got fooled on that one, cause none of us drank, but it wasn’t so bad, it was full of ice and water and just a small bit of the other. The dinner was supposed to be $3.25, but we had cokes and stuff later on after we danced, and the final bill turned out to be something like $18! I was amazed! We had lots of fun, though. I had a lovely corsage of 4 red roses and four white carnations with baby’s breath in between. We took a taxi down and a taxi home and I felt like a queen. I wore a black dress and shoes and a cute white hat and someone commented on what a striking-looking girl I was (I suppose because I was very tall with heels and in black, which is always striking). Anyway, it was swell. You should have been there. You would have enjoyed the dancing and the atmosphere and everything. That was the hotel where our prom was held. I told you about my prom, didn’t I? Boy, what a night! I didn’t get in till 4:00 AM! Louie gave me a white orchid (which I later discovered you can’t buy for less than $7.50 and they usually cost at least $10-$14! Nosey, aren’t I?) Anyway, it was lovely. I wore it in my hair cause I didn’t want to spoil it dancing. It was awfully hot that night. I went to a party afterwards. That’s why we didn’t get home till late. The Baccalaureate Service was boring as heck, but graduation was very nice. It only took an hour and a half, which wasn’t half bad, considering they had 400 kids to graduate! I got my class picture today in the mail. If I have room in my suit case, I’ll bring it up to show you. We girls carried lovely long-stemmed roses (one apiece) and the boys had pink carnations in their button-holes. Our money for the class gift amounted to $250, which we donated to the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Fund of our school. They don’t know yet what sort of a memorial they want to give for the boys in the service, but after the war they’re going to decide on something nice. Alread they have about $500. Some of the parents of the boys who died in service who went to Wilson have given nice sums for the memorial. We have 46 stars on our flag. I knew three of them very well. It seems strange, when I think of going out with those boys on dates not so long ago. I had a date with one just last January. He died on Okinawa in April.

To get back to pleasanter subjects, it sure is swell to feel you’re through with high school. I’m not sorry atall!

Tell maw and Audrey when they get there, that I’m not going to write to them at all till they write to me, so they better get right busy and site down and write. However, I’ll write to you, cause I know you’ll be busy quite a lot. Not that they won’t, but they can afford to sit down once a week and write me a letter. That’s how often they’ve demanded a letter from me, which I will be glad to send as soon as I receive THEIRS once a week! Don’t forget to tell them that!!

(signed)

Lotsa love,

Sibyl