From Bee and Shep [Lucille and Charles Shepherd], Chicago, 1948 and 1949 -- "that wholesome healthy look of American youth"

Murray met Charles "Shep" Shepherd on a train in the Midwest shortly after World War II, and their conversation began a lifelong friendship. Bee and Shep first came out to visit on Puget Sound in 1947, an exotic experience for a couple who had met in Chicago after Bee came north from Mississippi as a child. In turn they took Rosa and Murray to black clubs in Chicago. Much of their correspondence in the late '40s centered on civil rights and Progressive Party politics.

Dear Rosa and Murray:

We still haven’t gotten used to the idea of being home again, at work, instead of having the business of slicing brains on my mind, I keep seeing the evergreens, the lakes and streams and the beautiful white fog of Port Ludlow. (sigh) It was a wonderful vacation, believe me!

Bee at Port Ludlow: Rosa Morgan photo

Surprisingly enough, I passed the Civil Service exam for the job I’m now holding with a grade of 87.3 which when added to my 14 months of service and previous experience gave me position of fourth place on the regular appointment list. You can imagine how much my ego was inflated. However, I’m resigning as soon as I can be replaced. I could no longer take the “cracking whip” of my immediate supervisor (Mildred, who’s nuts about State Capitols) along with her 150% Americanism. I imagine she’ll feel a lot safer with me gone, fearing that I might contaminate her with what she thinks are positively radical notions. She recently very sweetly asked, “Lucille, would you like living in Russia?” which to me indicated that she thought I had communistic tendencies. She went down fighting when I told her of my intended resignation, “Well, I hate to see you go, but that’s the wonderful thing about America, we still have the right to make own decisions about where we work.”

 

I found that I could gain admission to Roosevelt College (which is a wonderful school) even with my two years of high school. I’ll be entered (provided I pass the IQ test) as an unclassified student for one year after which, if I’ve made an average grade of C or better, will be reclassified as a regular student. I’ve decided I’d like to know more about people and less (if possible) about specimens, so I’m going to study the social sciences. …

 

We came home with the desire to really become a working part of the Progressive

Campaign, not realizing at the time how hampered we were, in that we were both civil servants. We attended our first ward meeting of the IPP the following week after we were home and were definitely convinced that just a vote in November isn’t all the party needs. They are in desperate need of works and funds. The third ward (which is our ward) just recently rented a headquarters which is a very poorly ventilated, sorry-looking place in a building directly under the elevated tracks. When the “el” goes by a speaker must stop until it passes in order to be heard (I assure the els pass much more frequently than one imagines when one is  waiting to get to work) but it is still wonderful with what they have to work with, we’re enjoying immensely just being a part of it all. …

"How anyone could watch a group such as this, as intermixed as a bowl of chop suey and having the wonderful time they had without a thought of the other fellow’s race, nationality, or background, could possibly say it’s wrong, is just—well, I don’t know what." 

The “Youth for Wallace” here in this city is just wonderful, as they must be all over the country. Last Saturday I went to the downtown headquarters to get some of the campaign literature … that is issued by the Party because the people we talk to who aren’t already for the Progressives challenge one to a degree that you can’t depend on vague news and sentiment, you’ve got to know what you’re talking about if you’re going to talk at all. The literature has been wonderfully helpful, along with a book, “Foreign Policy Begins at Home” by James. P. Warburg [….] But as I started out to say, the “Youth for Wallace” is wonderful. I met quite a number of them on my visit to IPP headquarters in The Loop and was told about their mass picketing of city hall on the housing problem and of a dance that the City-wide youth organization was holding at the community center a few blocks from our house. We attended and enjoyed it thoroughly. They’re hard workers and a very serious group but still at the peak of gaiety. How anyone could watch a group such as this, as intermixed as a bowl of chop suey and having the wonderful time they had without a thought of the other fellow’s race, nationality, or background, could possibly say it’s wrong, is just—well, I don’t know what.

…

Love,

Lucille and Charles

From Shep, 12 March 1949

…We looked at the little pile of clippings that would be included in a letter to you two; they were all stale. Stuff from October 1948! Locally, the current news follows the national pattern. The State Legislature voted to investigate U of C and Roosevelt College.

The City Council voted down an amendment to the proposed public housing act that would prohibit segregation in this new housing. Quite a fight on the council floor. Our new liberal (?) Democratic Mayor Kennelly gave his active support to the opponents of the amendment. The Chicago Sun, that backed Kennelly’s candidacy, is now giving him hell for this reversal of policy. This is all tied up with a slum clearance and relocation program involving public and private funds. The Mayor’s contention is that New York Life and Metropolitan Life would not be willing to back financially this deal if the non-segregatory ordinance were passed. Why wouldn’t they? Ask him, not me. I suppose it’s the same old line about Negroes ruining new property by “putting coal in the bath tubs and cooling their feet in the refrigerator,” or something. …

From Bee, 12 March 1949

Hi Kids,

There is little for me to add, unless you would like to hear about my schooling—there is nothing I’d rather talk about. To begin with, I didn’t quit my job as I so firmly intended doing. I thought that was a kind of stupid move to make since I did pass the exam and what with our venture into buying a home, and with jobs getting scarcer and scarcer—I am still hanging on to it. I must say the situation is much improved, although I am still working like a dog. My colleague, Mildred, is beginning to see things my way politically and socially.

For example, she is no longer afraid of being hauled off to Alcatraz for thinking that National Health is a good thing for the nation, and that because five students out of 6,000 at Roosevelt belong to a communist club does not necessarily mean that the school receives daily memos from Stalin on how to run the school. So you see, she really is improving.

…

We were more than sorry to hear of the outcome of the fight for the professors at W.U. [University of Washington]. Our papers have been carrying quite a bit of the news, and with the help of NR [National Review], we have some kind of picture of what’s going on there.  We have seen several items in NR that we were sure must have been yours on the subject.

…

This business of investigating U of C and Roosevelt College that Charles mentioned was bought about because of a bill introduced to the state Senate called the Broyles Bill, which in actuality is another “little Mundt-Nixon Bill.” 

 

2,000 students, 200 of which were from Roosevelt and a similar number from U of C, went to Springfield to protest the bill. No mention was made of the other schools which were represented at the protest gathering but RC and U of C, so now these two schools are to be investigated. You can guess why. Broyles said that one could tell that these students were Communists because they didn’t have that “wholesome, healthy look of American youth.” …

We won’t make any rash promises but we shall certainly try to write a little more frequently. Thanks again for your loyal correspondence, love to you both.

Bee and C

Umnak, 9 November 1944--"everything conspires to make me homesick"

Happy Birthday, Nunny… [Rosa’s 26^th]

Everything conspires to make me homesick for our many homes. On Monday I saw the short “Birth of a Volcano,” which is far more about Patzcuaro than about Paracutín. Then on Tuesday there was the election and the memory of that wild, weird night four years ago when Koski and the porcine butcher were passed out in the corner, RVM [Russell Mack] was writing incoherent leads about his defeat by Martin Smith, and we were racing around in the Ford (water dripping through the ventilator onto your legs), picking up results at the outlying schools and basement polling places. And now as I write, on Wednesday night-Thursday morning, Radio Calcutta, of all places is playing the intermezzo from Hari Janos, the Hungarian opera, and I can almost smell the warm soft smell of the Danube and feel the cool of the night on Margaretan Island [in the Danube at Budapest]. Last night we tuned in on Radio Tokyo to see what they had to say about the election and got instead the Fantastic Symphony. 

About the election. Because of the time differential, it was only two when the polls closed in most of the eastern states. We began getting the results over shortwave from San Francisco. The United Network—the shortwave stations in San Francisco which we used to listen to from Mexcio—had a system worked out which divided the time between the networks. About every quarter hour they switched from Blue to National to CBS to Mutual, but before long CBS and National were so far ahead in adding up the results that most of the time they stayed with them. CBS was an unprejudiced best, mainly because all the National broadcasters got so interested in describing the elaborate procedure they had evolved for getting the results fast that they forgot to say what the results were. 

I caught only a couple of hours sleep in the in the early afternoon. My alarm was set for three, and when it went off I put on the tea, turned on the radio and settled down for the day. In our hut we were largely pro-democratic. (In the hut next to ours Col. McCormic would feel at home. They burn tapers for [Westbrook] Pegler on Labor Day.) Of those not on duty when the broadcasts began, everyone in our hut was pro-Roosevelt, with the exception of one kid from Alaska, who could not vote for President anyway. (We kid him about being a second-class citizen). Consequently we enjoyed the listening greatly.

Listening to the returns

By five o’clock, when it was time for dinner, there was no decision yet. I could not bring myself to take time out for dinner, partly because I wanted to keep on listening and partly, I suppose, it was a subconscious reaction based on my desire to be in a newspaper office with a partly filled dummy spread on the desk, the stacks of teletyped news piling up around me and the backshop boss clamoring for copy. If I could not have the type of confusion I wanted I would not take the confusion of the mess hall. So I missed a chicken dinner. But I got it cold at midnight, which was even better.

By six o’clock it was dark enough outside so that we could pick up the domestic band stations and I alternated between KNX Hollywood and KOL Seattle. MNX is CBS, and the only drawback was that it had no returns from Washington. As a matter of fact the Congressional results in Washington still haven’t come in, except for the good news that we still have Coffee in the House and that DeLacy is to be, as your friend put it, broadened. [Rep. John Coffee’s resolution to allow live radio broadcasts of the House of Representatives proceedings, though not fully implemented before he was defeated by Thor Tollefson of Tacoma in 1946, eventually paved the way for C-SPAN]

Once Dewey had made his nice little speech, tardily, I went over to see if there was any mail. I had two letters from my one love, one of which was written on the Muni News report. Reading that I felt really sorry for Lorin [Peterson]. The oblique attack on the P.U.D. bill without mentioning the Pacific Power and Light Co., and the listing “Identified with left wing bloc” always matched with “Intelligent. Respected in his community” for his opponent.

If the Washington local elections followed the national election, however, and the only time I can think of that they didn’t was in the 1940 election of Langlie; and since Wallgren got it—thank Tao—I think it isn’t too much to hope that the Third District got rid of its sad specimen in the House. I find myself unenthused by the election of [Warren] Magnuson, but he was the lesser evil.

Today the Republicans, especially the noisy ones, are having a rather rough time. A couple of them did not show up for breakfast. And one of them got so mad he stomped out without eating his eggs. Many of the comments were considerably below the level set by Dewey and Bricker. The Corsican [Enrico Traina], for instance, blamed the results on “the niggers and the Jews.” And one of the men claimed it was the WPA votes, which shows how deep habit runs in politics.
 

As for the people next to you at the symphony, my sweet, I have often had the same reaction, although up here we did not get very steamed up about the election.

One thing about the election which I wonder if you could find out for me. One of the most wrapt Republicans here claimed that he heard a radio announcement on Monday night in which Stalin asked for Roosevelt’s re-election. Now I am quite sure that Stalin would be all for it, for obvious reasons, but I cannot conceive of his pulling a political boner like that. Was there anything about it in the U.S. papers?

 

Janitzio, in Lake Patzcuaro, from http://www.lakepatzcuaro.org/DayOfDead.html

About the picture of Patzcuaro and Paracutín. It had a lot of pictures of the island, in very good Technicolor, and shot of the west end of the lake, in which I thought I could catch the white of the Ford’s house. I recognized several of the Indians, and the parts of Janitzio looked so familiar I almost smelled the pescado blanco cooking. While the show left me horribly lonesome for you, it has made writing on the novel much easier. Details come to me so much easier. This month should see the end of the novel, thank god. After that I think I will do a couple of short stories and then either work on the Guggenheim preliminary stuff, if that seems warranted, or perhaps go back to “And Shadows Fall.”

 

In her last letter Carmen said that she and Myrtle were going to have a party for you this afternoon, plikka. So I will sort of sit in on it with you from seven o’clock on. I can think of very few things I would not give to be with you today…

 

M

Umnak Island, 21 July 1944 -- Rosa's photography

My darling…

I finally found out who the Democrats nominated to run with Roosevelt. If feel something like Cassandra must have when the Greeks took Troy, justified but unhappy over my prediction. Remember the letter I wrote you in answer to Bill James’s idea that Roosevelt would have Wallace kept as No. 2? That was six weeks ago and my guess at that time was Truman. 

The Democrats could have done worse. They could have picked someone like Byrd or Smith or Rankin. Truman is slightly better than Bricker. But as a man he couldn’t carry Henry’s boomerang. 

Maybe I’ll vote straight Prohibitionist. But seriously, I suppose there’s nothing to it but to give it to FDR yet another time. 

Jack woke me up about five o’clock this afternoon. He had been to the main PX and there picked up the August Adventure. He was properly enthusiastic about my story [“A Job for Joe”], which means he did not rip it to rags. He found the plot weak—but at least he found a plot there. He liked the background, dialogue and pace. A man of discernment, no less.

The illustrations that Adventure whipped up for the story are indeed peculiar. The Rumanian soldiers look like a cross between Bulgars and bad comic opera. And Father Titu belongs on a Coca Cola ad. I liked the blurb for the story on the contents page: the one about Joe’s changing clothes in church. It was also nice to have the story in the middle of the book instead of at the end. 

I finished another short story today. It is the one I have mentioned in the last couple of letters, about the anti-Semitism I ran into the other day. Jack has read the first draft (the second draft I completed just before starting this letter). The story has to clear some sort of special censorship. I am sending you a carbon under separate cover so that the letter won’t be slowed up along with the story.

So far I have done little on the novel, but it was so much fun to be writing again that I may get back to serious work on it now. By the way, we have never seen a copy of the article I sold to the Rotarian. It seems to me that Jean said something about her mother or brother or someone taking Rotarian. Will you ask her about it and if she does take it see if you can get hold of a copy. I would like to show that one to a couple of our local Carnegie disciples, especially Johnny Hazen.

I enjoy John. He is the peak plodder of all time. I don’t think he could fall fast. A former employee of Weyerhaeusers, he is as robust a Republican as Russell Mack, and about forty years younger, too. He has no close friends and no enemies. He does his work well, listens to symphonies with silence if not deep appreciation, and except in comments on Roosevelt and unions speaks with measured restraint. The boys call him “The Great Stone Face.”

 

John knows a lot about the Aleutians. He listens well and never forgets. There was a forest ranger here for awhile and Hazen talked with him about the local flora and fauna. From John I keep getting fragments of frustrated woodsman’s lore. The yellow flowers which grow in the swamp and keep so well when put on the desk in a glass of water are not tiger lilies. They are, instead, some form of snapdragon. The local sparrows are called Aleutian Song Sparrows and they have a double set of feathers, only one of which gets ruffled in the worst williwaw. The eagles on this island are a browbeaten lot, suffering from an inferiority complex because them the time they are big enough to fly they have to defend themselves against the flocks of crows which steal their food. One story is that a flock of ravens chased an eagle into a guard house where the MPs protected him.

You may see John before too long. He has been picked as an OCS candidate and will head south soon. So if a big, blond sergeant with a Prussian bob and twisted moustache shows up, don’t shoot. He’s in our army. Even more, he’s from Tacoma. So join with him in tippling some tequila and drink a toast to those who only sit and wait. 

Market day in Patzcuaro

Ted Godfrey joined our tea party tonight. I have finally figured out who he looks like—a society edition of Norm Corwin. Or, perhaps, Robert Montgomery in a smirkie. He is not a bad kid, although he seems exceptionally young for 25, probably because his folks are quite wealthy and he has always worked for his father. He just passed his first wedding anniversary the other day and has been away from his wife for four months now. He is desperately lonely.

He was duly delirious about your Mexican photos, which I have taped on the wall over my desk and by the cot, and we had a long bullsession about ideal honeymoons. He and his Dorothy intend to take off to somewhere or other as soon as he takes off his OD’s. 

Lake Patzcuaro

Lyle Deckard, a sergeant who has the bunk directly opposite mine, got interested in the talk of canoeing and told me that he has been along most of the Salmon in Idaho. That’s the one the Indians call “The River of No Return.” He says it would make a marvelous canoe trip and that it has about 200 miles of fast water without major rapids. He also knows the grand canyon of the Snake, including the Hells Canyon section, but I didn’t have a chance to talk to him about it.

Lake Patzcuaro

However my number one postwar paddledream is still the trip down the Mississippi. …

Well, my little one, it’s time for me to get to work. No letter from you today, so I’m even lonelier than usual. I wish I could think of some way to say how much I love you.

…

M

All photos by Rosa Morgan