Tape 1: A letter from May 1986

0:00 Hello from Agnes: Decoration Day weekend and Mary's graduation

Chris, I hope you can hear me. I don't know much about, but I will tell me a few things that I got on my mind. So, what do you call it, do you want to come and give me some candy and stuff?

I don't know, maybe I told you that already, but anyhow, it was from Mary, Mary Berry. you know from from Ohio and so she talked a little while and she went about her business well now it's a decoration day you know that by now it's Monday Monday and so I talked to her she but Johnny wasn't home and so she told me that Johnny is coming with the car and to take me to the decoration date.

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Now what am I going to do? Stop.

Well, I got, I had to quit because she brought me some pills and stuff. Only nine of them every day, six times a day. So, well, anyhow, I'm getting out all right. So now, Rosie was over the other day.

Oh, wait, no, I'm over stepping. So then, yeah, Mary had her thing to get this thing over with, they get her schooling done, and she passed with flying colors, all right. But the thing is, she had to go and get her diploma their feet.

She had a high step and shoes, high step and shoes, but she couldn't walk him. So she took them off and she went to the barefoot down there to get her diploma. She got it real nice, the diploma was fine.

Well, I didn't go there. There was 260, I think, of guys getting diplomas that day. And it started 8 o 'clock, and at 6 .30 I was in bed, you know. So I couldn't go. The father and the mother went, and who else went?

I don't know from the family, but they went. And so she come yesterday, I wonder if you hear me. She come yesterday, and it's the first time she come in many, many months. Well, she had this schooling business, you know, and that.

So the smallest child come over with her, with Rosie and her two kids, and she was the biggest, nicest girl out. Oh, she was just big girl, you know.

3:33 Rose's little ones come to visit: new shoes and a mischievous toddler

She's five years old, so she was happy. about five years old. She's going to go to school in the fall. But she looks so gorgeously nice. Oh, she was just beautiful girl. And, oh, she fell down and hurt her hand a little.

Got some bloody stuff, but we chagged it off. And she was all right. Well, she just fell on the pavement there at a place where, I had the patio. And, oh, there's so many things that tell you, I don't know.

So anyhow, I, oh, and the little Rosie's one, they both had to have shoes, she says. The little one lost his brand new nice shoes, one of them she lost. So I think maybe it could have been the dog that carried it away or something.

Anyhow, she had only one shoe, so she had to go get another shoes. And the oldest one, his thing was going to keep two pieces in front. She could practically see her, his toes. Well, they're just on the go, go, go.

So she was going to give them both a pair of shoes. and and grandpa Brunsleek oh the oldest one she he could say it's nice and says I am I am of the Brunsleek type and so all he was telling me how he's going to go and how he's going to go and fish with me and everything well the old Brunsleek and John got together and they are putting up a fence for the littlest one.

He is impossible, I am telling you. He is on a go, go, go. He is just full of the dickens. After all, he eats all the meat and everything he wants, you know. And so he's getting fat and nice and sassy.

And he is full of fun. and the oldest one he was trying to teach him to kneel down and smell to the flowers and he just pays no attention to it and so they had to go make the sense for her so she can't go and and make up to him he is on the he's ready to go to the to the brink to the place where they catch fish, you know.

And the oldest one, he sees him go, started to go to the thing. So he runs in the house and he pressed a button so the mama inside can see here, here and she flies out and straight for the thing, for the place where they catch fish and sure enough he's there within a half a minute he'd be in the water and he don't know how to go and swim or nothing and the oldest one he says I could teach him how to swim but he won't listen.

He is just himself he wants to go so he goes so so now the fence is going to be up because she just gets she's going to go very thin because he she's on a go with him running after him all the time so she can get done with her housework and stuff and so she's got uh she's got a place to go and paint something you know so she'll get money and stuff so that and uh

7:53 Joey and his girlfriend drop by; Agnes paints her flower pots

So, well, now I've got to tell you more. Joey and his girlfriend come over. I had a gown already ready to go to bed. I was painting the things for my flowers, you know. He gave me the paint and the brush and everything, the manager.

He is a good guy. I'm telling you, he does all kinds of nice. things for me. So he gave me the paint and that's nothing. And I, yesterday, I painted all day.

And so I was tired. About 6 .30, I was in bed with my gown, you know, ready to go lay down. And here they come, Joey and the girlfriend. So we had a real nice visit. And Joey is home.

he finally got away from that lady that had him milked house and do other things after she goes in the morning and takes him to the high school and he's got the lunch there and then for the evening she comes with the car and brings him back wherever he was so he hated it so much that he begged the old man and then to let him come home and of course naturally the mama she went and put her two cents in and so he come home so he told me yesterday that he come home and he's trying to help his father once in a while

something and he still goes to school I guess it's a matter of a few days now and the school will be out. And so, a mother took him to Rice Lake to buy some groceries and stuff. And so he went to Paddy's and he phoned the girlfriend and she come over and then they come over here.

So fine. Well, it looks like he is getting much better. So I don't know about that. drugs, but we didn't say nothing about it. He says, you found out that I am home, and I says, yeah, your mother told me, you see.

Oh, and the mother come, oh, the mother come and some of her, oh, Jesus, I got so many things to say, she come in the rain with the two neighbors, neighbors, they are not really neighbors. You know where Napsir used to live, huh, the big house?

Well, the lady that was in it, she moved out somewhere else close to the place where she works where they had that, where I had my, you know, where I had my thing.

11:12 A visitor, a lost-and-found dog, and a man who lost two toes

And I went, you know, I went to Rice Lake here. And so I let out whatever I had. to the girls and you and the rest of them. And so he moved in there. There's one man and a lady.

The man had access to it. He was a swollen face and everything. So the mother, they didn't have the car, I think. So the lady of the house with this saw tooth, he had, and he went to see.

doctors and the mother and the two dogs come over the man or the woman and I told your mother I said I've got to have a pair of shoes because the doctor I went to the doctor a little John one of the guys lived right next to Bali what you call it I'm not in Well, she's got a whole bunch of tints and stuff.

And the last one got married last spring, or this spring. And he told me all of them. And I was so glad that he come over here to meet, be here with me, and I said, well, for good little sake, I see my little sake.

I see my little job here. I was so happy over it, because he was always not. to me at the rice lake place where the kids ate me and we ate. And so he went with that room and like me and the rest of them, we went to eat dinner there, you know.

So he went to decide that's how I know him. And so afterwards we went to his room and he told me how he got his two toes cut off. two of them. One day he fell down and he couldn't get up.

And his best friend is a man or there is a old one the dog. He went and he laid down right next to him on the ground and this guy couldn't get up and the dog couldn't lift him up or nothing.

So the dog, in two days, he died right behind him. You see, he don't know how long he laid on the ground. He was wet and dirty and everything. And, you know, he didn't know how long he laid there on the ground.

And so finally, one of the kids says they didn't see him. So they come over to see him and there he goes on the ground in the thing like. So they got the ambulance and they hauled into Rice Lake.

So in Rice Lake, they took place, two toes. Well, that's the first time I heard about it. I never heard nothing before that, you know, from town.

14:39 Sore feet, fallen arches, and money worries

And so he said to him, it's over with them. He said, well, I'm here to eat with you and stuff. Oh, so anyhow. how I was so tired, I thought I'll never make it to my room, but I did, and I lay down, and I slept the day down for a long time.

And then, then I, the nurse says, we've got a place for you to go to see the doctor, and the doctor told me that, that's why my toe is so big and, you know, And I had problems with this for about three, four weeks, you know.

And so I said, I don't want to go and have my toes taken off like little jam. So I said, you'll do something for me. He says, well, I will. And so he put on my leg and everything.

And he says, my arches are fallen. And that's why I got the trouble with my big toe and everything. So I had to go and have good shoes with the arts and everything. Well, I don't know if I told you, I don't think I did.

Johnny, I bring me a beautiful flower, you know, something like you, I had from you, you know, a nice flower, all winning and everything. and he pushed out $20 to $20 for me you know I told him I said I lent him an awful lot in the length of time I had with my husband at home because I never had a chance to go and spend it because the women folks were with him all the time and drinking day and night and I had to go home and milk cows and everything So that's why I let Johnny have quite a bit of money.

So I said to him, you know, I said to him, I am kind of getting less and less ago. They are giving us lots less money than they did before. The $40 are not so much no more. It's only $30.

I think that the ladies are whatever.

So I get a little less money and stuff. And so that's why we had a new administrator, you know. You shook hands with him before you went, remember? The tall, nice guy. So I come home to my room and I finally broke down and I had a few little tears.

I didn't know what the heck to do. I wasn't coming for a few days.

17:52 A kind manager takes Agnes shoe shopping

Excuse me. So I had to go and I couldn't go to the pennies, to the mall, and get my shoes or anything, because I couldn't. I stood agan far, you know. And so here he comes and he shook my hands and how are you and everything.

I said, I'm not so good. I said, the doctor just told me that I have to have a real good pair of art supports and everything. And I just, I can't go to the mall or anywhere to get the shoes.

And I don't know how these close at hand here would be if they're going to have what I have to have. Oh, he says that, a little while, five minutes or so, you get yourself ready, and we're going to go to the mall and we'll try and get you this kind of a shoe you got a hand.

So he was really nice. He went, and he had a friend there at the mall, and they measured my feet where I used to go there for it, you know. And I, uh, I, uh, he measured right and left and everywhere else.

How, how, how, uh, how flat they are, my, my feet, you know. And all then, and they gave me the right shoe. And they said, I got to walk around and see how they feel and everything. And I got my little slippers I had.

I took them off and I walked and walked in, and they felt like if they were on velvet, you see. And the men said to me, oh, before we went, if I have money to go and if I have to have it from the table, you know, where the lady is, I says, no, I got enough money.

See, Johnny gave me $40. So I had the $40. Well, I said, I think I'll have enough for a pair of shoes, so we went. And it comes to pass that it was $49 and $99 for the shoes.

You got enough money. I said, I had, so I gave them the money. And I got penny back from Johnny's $40. But it was fine. Oh, he wanted me to keep the shoes on and walk with him. They're like that day, that afternoon.

And it was a nice sunny day. And when he said, from now on, you've got to wear them everything. I says, I don't know if I can because the nurses or the girls, they're so anxious to go in time, actually.

can't tie him. My tummy was getting a little bigger, you know. And so, he says, never nine, I'll do the time myself. He said, she's fine. So I hope, you know, that this was on Friday or Saturday. And Sunday morning, the lady that used to pay the organ and everything for me and used to come and pick me up, you know, at 10 to, 10 to 7 in the morning and I went to early medicine and now I went to pass the house few times but she didn't look like she had that she had a car there so I figured she is still in the

hospital she was there for three weeks see with something she had something with her gut or something to operate out so I just picked up and went the back way, and I went and went to the church. Fine.

So coming to church, into the church, up the stairs, she was up there where she had the organ. And she says, Agnes, I'm so glad you're home. She says, don't worry about going home. You don't have to walk it.

I'm going to take you with the car. I'm all right. so from then on I'm going with her in the car see

22:52 Painting flower pots and another visit from Joey

so my shoes are like on velvet oh just wonderful but now I got other things to do now I am painting the painting the stuff on a patio all of it all those flower pots and all that mine and Mrs.

Nohas and everybody's So I got done this morning, I haven't got no more paint. We used up the whole gallon, or not gallon, but a smaller thing. He bought it and a nice thing with a paint, with a brush, paintbrush, you know.

And I done it. So yesterday I was so tired that at 10, 15 or something, Oh, no, no, no.

Six o 'clock something, I was already in my nightgown. I'm ready to go to bed. And here comes Joey and the girlfriend. And I said, now, Joey, I said, you don't have to worry about my back bone, you know, that I haven't had the, it's covered.

But I'll be all right one of these days I'm going to make a get -out. thing to have it, so I have it all covered and stuff. So we laughed and he come and he kissed me. And he seems like pretty nice then.

I don't know, you know. His mother went to get groceries. So she took him to Paris. And from Paris, he phoned the girlfriend. Then the girlfriend come to Paris. and then they come walk over to my place. So you see how things are now.

So now, knowing that the mother or the father hasn't got a decent car, and I don't know if the mother let him have the car. Then two people, like I say, with the jaws, hurting and everything, but it was raining cats and dogs.

So that's why she told me, your mother, she told me I should have an open -toe thing and I'll be fine. But just it didn't work. Just one morning I went down the basement to eat and I couldn't wear it.

So that evening we washed the bottom of the thing. And like I say, and then the manager took me to get the good shoes. So I've got the good shoes now. So now, Joanne don't know that Johnny gave me the money.

So I wouldn't tell her.

26:02 Decoration Day: flowers for Grandpa and her husband

And Johnny Jr. is coming to get me for the decoration day. Well, after the two years that I am here, I got over being so. about pa what is what is over with you know he's drinking and his girlfriends and everything and so i figured maybe i won't be able to go and cry nobody cried i never cried on his you know when when he was buried in nothing so i got the girl to go down down to the Schultz's and get me two bouquets, one for Grandpa, Grandpa Joe, you know, and one for my husband.

$12 for the two little bouquets, just to stick in the ground, you know. Well, it was all right. It looked all right. So I took it, and they took it off of my thing, you know, off of my place where I supposed to run.

So your father is told me he's going to give me the $10 for the two books that I made. He had him for somebody to sell for, and he's going to give me the money, this decoration day. And the decoration day is going to be on Monday.

so I am going and oh and I told you Johnny Jr. with his thing with his with his with his with his thinking always wear on decoration day he shoots the the thing, you know, in the air and all that, you know.

So he's going to come all dressed up and pick me up around 10, 9 o 'clock. So I'll be on that to see the parade and everything. So that's going to be over with. Who's going to take me home?

I don't know. John and John, Rose's husband, he already spoken for the, to play ball, some place. So he's going to take the car, see? So either I'll hopefully I'll have to get down back or Johnny will have to take me or somebody will have to take me back to Hermitage.

So I don't know how I'm getting along with this, how many minutes I got or what, but I'm talking all the time, like usual. Well, and so, Well, Mrs.

29:23 Painting for Mrs. Noha, and the fig tree that is starting to bud

Noha, the one that's supposed to be my friend. I don't know if she is or not. Well, I told her that I'll paint her things for her flowers and everything. So she can send it that I can paint her stuff.

So she can't herself, got only one hand, you know, and the two legs in the wheelchair. So she let me do it. So I done it, the last one I done this morning. It's already 9 o 'clock. So I suppose I'll send you this thing.

I didn't hear from you nothing, so I don't know if you got much chance to say something in one of them. So I'm fixing it. One girl went and fixed up my outfit here. And it's moving around, so I think it's all right.

And Frank or Johnny, or Johnny, Joey brought me some things to eat. What was it all?

The little chips, yeah, the potato chips and stuff. And so I am finished with my, money I got from Johnny so I'll have to tell her to give me a little money so I want my things to what you call it I like so much I can't think of it now well anyhow did I tell you or didn't I that I've got the plant that I ordered for $5.

One lady gave me $5. So I went to work and I sent for the fig tree. Everybody wants to see the fig trees. So I got it. We're the sun shining, you know, from the east of something. And one lady that scrubs the floor, she told me, I should paint or I should give the thick tree just a little water once in a week.

She says she don't do nothing for her, for her plants. So she's got a lot of nice ones. They always dry and help. And she says she just waters them once a week and stuff. And she told me I'm supposed to do the same thing with the fig tree.

Well, I just don't feel I should starve it from little water. I got it right here, you know. So every morning I go and take one glass of water and I pour it out. Well, I didn't feed no fertilizer for the fig tree.

But the thing is, today, I've seen it, and it's starting to open up the butt. It's starting to have a butt good, you know, and it's got about five, six buds to be put, open up, you know. So I'm not going to tell her nothing.

I'm going to go and water this thick tree once a day, at least not once a week, but once a day. So I think I'll have to get a little fertilizer and put a half a teaspoon with some water in it once, once in a week maybe, or something.

I think it has to have a little fertilizer, you know. But I'm so happy that it's starting to bud out a little bit. So I've got a little girl down the basement. She's about 14, I think. she says I know how to stop anybody touching your fig tree so she takes a nice little card and she wrote please do not touch the fig tree and my name was underneath and everything I was kind of sickly that eight and so she done it and she pasted it on the fig tree thing where it's where it is you know And I think that some folks are a

little down on it. They don't want me to have it, but I still have it and I like it. So once it starts having leaves, I'm going to take pictures of it.

34:27 The day Agnes's thirty photographs went missing

So things like that are happening right and left, you know. The guy crossed the street from me, not. I really across just a little ways out of the side. She heard me telling him that I lost about 30 pictures, what I've taken with my camera and everything.

No, I took two, well, three, three. Well, there was about 30 pictures all told in a big bundle. And I come there to play the bingo. and I open up the package and I let all the women folk that I like let them look over my pictures and stuff.

And then I put the pictures on the table what would play the bingo in. And I had a nickel and three pennies of my bingo money. I put them in with with 30 pictures that I had. And we talked and we had ice cream and we had, what you call it, a little coffee and stuff.

And I got up and I went out and I got the place where I took a little money and I took the quarter and I got to take to my room. And I was going to go and sit and drink the pop and stuff.

And I come to my room, and I open up the thing, and I start drinking a little bit. And then I said to myself, where the hell did I put the nickel and the pennies, you know? And then I thought, where I done it, I put it in that envelope with the pictures.

and I looked around and I didn't have the pictures nowhere around and then like a shot I remembered where I left them I forget so much already it's just too bad you know and so I went back there as so as I had my legs yet and I had my new shoes and the manager went and he goes and he puts my shoelaces out himself because the girls that's another story so they haven't got the time to give me give my shoelaces now I can bend down enough you see so I got my troubles with the shoelace so he says that's all right he sat

on his knees he put on his knee and he put the mark so fine so I put the foot back and I looked high and low and I couldn't find the pictures, you know. They took all the stuff off from the table and all that, and they took my pictures, and I didn't have it.

I thought to myself, what the heck did they need them for? I let them see the pictures before, you know, stuff. Well, anyhow, I had little tears in my eyes and I figured I'll go to my room and I'll have a little cry.

There was good 30 pictures, you know, like yours, yours, your car and your things that you sent me, you know, and all that. And they were all there, the 30 pictures, and some of mine, you know. And so I let it go.

And I just lay down a little while and I wiped my tears off a little bit. He says, well, God willing, whatever. They took it, they took it. They must have wanted bad enough that they took all my pictures.

See, here comes the guy across the path where I go. And he says, here's your pictures, Agnes. He went snooping around where they had the different things. You know, she's, you know, Sarah, Sarah, Galvin. There's got different things there, garbage and stuff.

He swooped around there, and he's seen a little spot, and there was all my pictures. So he takes them and brings it over to me. Well, I was plenty happy. Well, I had about four or five ladies already thinking about where's my pictures, and they were trying to look around for them.

Well, I told the one that dishes out the money and all that. So, well, she says, I'm glad that you got him. I figured that somebody will find them and stuff. So I got my pictures. So you see, so then yesterday when Joey was here, I let him look at all the pictures and stuff.

39:47 Tables to paint, 90 minutes of tape, and a little boy who wants to go fishing

And so life goes on, as it always goes on, now he's going to get me another. another package, another container. I think it's about a quart or a little more. I don't know. Anyhow, I got the things out already.

I got everything painted that I wanted to paint. But I found out that there is two tables and six, oh, no, four of them things they sit on, you know, when they want to eat at the table. And then there is another table with the two big things where they sit, a whole bunch of them can sit on both sides of the table, and they get my table.

But it's getting so worn, it shows off peeling and everything. And I told him, I said, because you should dye my shoes and do everything. I said, active decoration day, you get me another container, and I got the brush, and I'll do the two tables in the chairs.

Oh, he says, that would be just nice. He is nice all around, you know, for me. So we get along just fine. I'm not going to go work today and tomorrow. I'm going to just sit around and lay around a little while.

and then on decoration that John is supposed to come like I say and give me the take me the two bookies with me to John's and grandpa gargallops and I'll go to the decoration see the parade and all that stuff and how I'm going to get here I'll get here don't you worry about it one way or another well I don't know how much more I can go on say here.

I got 90 minutes, so I don't know. Well, I'll leave it, go. I'll have it plugged in, and I'll wait, and maybe something will come up so I can let you have some of the gossip around here. Oh, and another thing is I had the rice lake paper, and now through the summer I'm not going to take it because I got mostly my flowers and stuff.

And, oh, the littlest, the oldest one, he didn't want to go home. Oh, and he had quite a time. And she says, we've got to go and get a little groceries and gold. So we went. They went. But he says, Grandma, and he kissed me about four times.

And he says, Grandma, you just have to come over and go fishing with me. I says, all right, we will. So we'll see, maybe Johnny can just let me off at Rosie's for a day and we'll go fishing and do something, play.

Oh, he says, all the things he's got to play with and all that. And he says, and with this new thing, they're going to fish up, they'll give the kids so he won't be able to run away. And so I'll have to play with them with the things that he's.

he's got to play with. And, of course, I'll let you know how Rosie is getting with her thing. He's fixing him for her, you know, for the place where she, in the kitchen, you know, he's fixing up some of this stuff for her, for Rosie.

And I guess she's going to plant things, like tomatoes and other things. She brought me, she brought me a whole bunch, whole bunch of flowers again yesterday. So this morning, early, I got up at 5 .30, and I went and I take a big butcher night from the kitchen.

And I cut it in half. It was a big chunk and a clump like. And so I divided it in half and I planted it. So I haven't got no more stuff to plant on, you know, because it's all taken up with the flowers and different things.

Oh, and Mrs. Lark, Joe Lark is here, you know. Oh, this is he's so miserable.

44:39 Goodbye for now: Mr. Lark, flowers, and Mary's job hunt

He can't talk or nothing no more. He just sits and he listens to her. Then she starts crying and she goes out. She goes and visits with a lady that has got something, some kind of a kid going to place to go, going some kind of a service or something.

every other day. So she goes with this lady, and she goes and visits him, and then she brought me eight or nine nice flowers that are all, they were all filled with, with, already in the water, you know, they start growing.

So I fixed them yesterday, and it was kind of a frosting, and well, they frosted a little, but not much, just enough to make it miserable. Well, I'll leave this going after a while. I'll say a few words and say bye -bye for you.

I hope that you're turning up all right with your stuff. And, you know, did you stop at Franks? you went, when you went to the, to the airplane, you know, maybe you did, I don't know.

Oh, and Mary, she, she wants to go and find out about that job. She might get up in Minneapolis or St. Paul or someplace. So she's going to Franks up there, and he's going to see he can find something for her.

Well, it's kind of hard. She knows everything, and she went through it nice, and I think. And I don't know how he must be still working, you know. And the kids are just wonderful. They're nice. So now they'll have vacation.

So I don't know how things will go. Well, I'll see you. After a while, I'll say a few words yet. Oh, I think it's stopped. Oh, no, I didn't. Well, I'll see a little while after dinner, I think.