Tape 1: A letter from May 1986

Decoration Day: flowers for Grandpa and her husband

3 min

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Johnny Jr. will pick her up on Monday, dressed up, to see the parade. After two years in her new home, Agnes says she has gotten over her old sadness about her husband's drinking and has bought two small bouquets for the graves, one for Grandpa Joe and one for her husband. She mentions that someone will pay her $10 for two books she made.

This story is part of Tape 1. You can hear it there at 26:02, along with everything around it.

What Agnes says

Words in light grey italics were hard to hear, so they may not be exact.

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,