Sweet, my darling,
Tonight I’m very tired, but I shall never be too tired to tell you I love you, nor shall I ever become weary of hearing you say you love me. Oh, it’s such a glorious thing that you do. I marvel, and shall always do so, that you have given me the privilege of believing you will always love me and be my sweetheart. Whatever the world shall think of me in the years ahead of [illegible] I shall know I have been favored by the gods in this—that you have chosen me ahead of all others. What more could I ask, excepting to be able to take care of you and to justify your choice to some extent. Darling, I intend to work so hard for you. But I’m afraid you’ll have to be satisfied with a sort of ordinary husband.
Work didn’t go so well today. I ran acetyl values on linseed oil using the weaker reagents I used on the free acids yesterday, but the checks were rotten. Oh well, just another thing to repeat. Seems I’m not much of a research worker.
How is the cold? You poor darling, a cold is such a miserable thing to have in the summer time. Doesn’t it appear that I use the word darling too much?‹1› Whether it does or not you and darling are synonyms in my thoughts.
Just think, tomorrow is Saturday, and Monday is a holiday, so I can look forward to three whole days without word from you—I am desolate. Yet Tuesday will be something to await eagerly, for then those tardy letters should arrive. In the meantime the ones which have come already will be read and reread again. I haven’t tried it yet, but I must be almost able to recite every one of them by this time.
Is the chemistry department deserted now? Dr. West gone for good; Drs. Shaffer, Ronzoni, and Urban‹2› out of town; Artie left today; Miss Case, Adler, and the new janitor are on their vacations. Miss Wieghard comes over occasionally to do a combustion or optical rotation, but there is absolutely no one else around. Yet the only thing which makes me lonely is your absence. If you were here they wouldn’t even be missed. Sweetheart mine, it is an old, old story, but I know of no better way to tell it than to say again,
My precious darling, I love you,
Harold
One Comment
Phillip A Shaffer, PhD appears in 16 oral histories and sounds to have been a complete knob, though Greer rather liked him.
Ethel (Ronzoni) Bishop is nicely described in Harry Agress’ oral history… she’s the one who put ipecac in the alcohol, according to Schmitt.
Frank Urban was a chemist… sounds like he wasn’t at wustl for long. No known middle initial — he published (with shaffer) as “Frank Urban”
Miss C.W. Wieghard, perhaps? There’s just one 1935 pub under that name, and no appearance in oral history … I find a Charlotte Wieghard Fahey (1909-1995) who was later a professor of chemistry at Skidmore from 1937-1975. A likely candidate.