Frank Sadler to Rosa Northcutt (Morgan), June 30, 1936 -- "will you think of me as a nice fellow?"

Murray and Frank Sadler were best friends from 5th grade on. Frank's mother was a widow and had to work, and Murray had his own floor at the parsonage at 4th and "I" streets, where he and Frank enjoyed many an hour of unsupervised freedom. In old age, Frank told me that they had been drawn together because they were both bookish kids and because they had each lost a parent. Adda Laine Morgan died when Murray was 16, and before that was immersed in her ministry and other projects, leaving most of his care to the housekeeper. 

In adolescence, they also bonded over boxing. Murray was an ardent fan and Frank fought professionally during high school and college. He used an assumed name, first to fool and later to spare his mother, and also because he feared that "nice girls," of whom my mom was certainly one, wouldn't accept him if they knew. When she was seventeen and Murray was traveling in Europe with his father, Frank wrote her this confession. 

Frank Sadler, with and without Murray

Dear Rosa: 

This is an apologia.

I put my name on the envelope for your benefit--that you might not be misled into opening it. From that point on it is your own doing. I used no subterfuge.

I want to apologize for--maybe even justify--the unfortunate incidents that might have caused you to scratch my name from your roll-call des amis. In the first place I think to highly of you to let our friendship slip into oblivion. I would say the same thing to my best pass--Murray-boy. I love him as I would a brother--and much as I haven’t shown it--you just as much as a sister.

I think you know the instance of which I am afraid. Murray told me that you had discovered--as, unfortunately for me, the wrong people do--my infamous pastime. It is a pastime which people of a nice set, like my mother, you and others, probably call brutal, atavistic and degrading. When Murray told me, I thought that you would probably shudder a bit in disgust and absolve our friendship at once. Was I wrong? I think perhaps I was. I couldn’t help thinking along those lines, however, for that has been the case in the past. Masculine friends, good or bad, wouldn’t desert me; but the nicer type of girl--the kind I really admire, have often looked quite askance when my secret, which started with Murray, is revealed. 

It is my desire that you look upon this activity of mine as an outlet for boyish energy and an appearance, perhaps too strongly, of a love of physical competition as well as for the filthy lucre and publicity. Will you still, in the face of everything, think of me as a nice fellow who can still prove he has a set of ideals worthy of your and Murray’s friendship? I hope that my worrying over this little matter is but the workings of a mind biased though experience. I hope there has been no estrangement at all in your mind. But, just to ease my own thoughts--you will consider what I have written?

I hope you are enjoying life to the utmost this summer. If you should happen to be in Seattle at some time, you have my sincerest invitation to visit me--and to enjoy a beautiful day on Lake Washington in the boat. 

We both know Murray is having the time of his life--and I surely hope that he writes you as frequently and as faithfully this summer as he did when but forty miles away from you.

                                                                                                                       

 Yours,

                                                                                                                           
 quite thoughtfully,

                                                                                                                                  Frank