Person:Roland Whitmore (1)

Name^[1]	Roland Monroe Whitmore
Gender	Male
Birth^[1]	8 Aug 1890	Cedar Township, Antelope, Nebraska
Marriage	6 Feb 1918	Ewing, Nebraskato Florence E. Bethea
Death^[1]	9 May 1957	Atwater, California

Letter to Mr. & Mrs. Wm Herrmann, Swartz Creek, Mich. {Minnie Coquigne Herrmann was his first cousin, daughter Nettie (Brown) Coquigne, his mother's sister.]

Waukena Calif Jan. 6. 1939- Dear Cousins: Well your Xmas message was forwarded from Ewing and found us here. I was sure glad to get it as I never get any news from back there only when you write. We came out here a year ago last July for a visit with Floriences mother annd sisters. I brought my carpenter tools along thinking that I might want to work a little to keep my appetite up to normal. And to make a long story short we are still here.

Jan. 9 And I don't seem to be able to locate a pen. Work was very scarce in Nebr when we left there. Due to Depression Recession and several years of very short crops due to drought & hot winds from the famous dust bowl. And incidentally, considrable of that dust settled in our locality at various times.

I had been here less than a week when I got a contract to build 30 cotten pickers cabins for a big cotton company and when those were finished they had more work waiting for me and so they kept me busy untill about the middle of Oct. which gave me a start. Of course I haven't been busy all the time, even in this great and "Golden State" but I have done pretty well. Of course wages foor skilled labor are pretty hight here, but so are rentals and food stuffs. It costs at lest 1/3 more to live here than it did in Nebr. There has been a terrible influx of people into this state from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Middouri during the past ten years. I think it was about then years ago they started raising cotton here on a large scale and work at that time was very pelntiful and wages high. Then the price of cotton dropped and with it the wage scale and every year these people have continuyed to come in by the thousands untill now a farmer can get farm labor at any old price and still there are millions on relief here that shoud have stayed where they came from at least the natives here think so. especially as a large majority of these laborers from the before mentioned states are of a very undesirable class of people.

We are located about the middle of the San Jaun Valley which is about 500 miles long and 100 miles wide and is supposed to be as fertile as the valley of the Nile. But of course you have to irrigate in order to raise any thing. It is truly a land oof sunshine there the summer and fall. The skys are cloudless for months at a time and for about two oor three months the mercury climbs to between 100 & 112 nearly every day once in awhile we have have a day hotter or cooler just for variation. From the middle of Nov. to Feb. we get plenty of fog and cloudy weather. The fog is thickest at night but some days it stays with us all day. It is a great county of colds, pneumonia, hayfever, etc. And of course on account of so many trancients, there is plenty of childrens deseases every year, such as hooping caugh, measles, scarlet fever etc. in the cotton and fruit camps. Flo went back to Ewing late in Nov. just past, to dispose of our furniture etc. and so heard of a few happenings since we left there. She spent a day (and night) in Oakdale.

Clarence Brainard said no one ever heard from Aunt Minnie [his mother's sister, Minnie (Brown} Thorp.] and he got to to wandering how she was getting along so one day last fall he drove down there [Washington, Kansas]. He said she had just finished her fall house cleaning and was just as bright and spry as she ever was. She has a real nice modern home with all kinds of electrical conveniences but of course she never has time to write to any one so the only way to find out anything about her is to visit her. After Katy [his father's first cousin, Katy (Leach) Brainard, daughter of A. J. and Esther Eliza (Hill) Leach.] died Clarence had Mertice and her family move in with him. Carrie and Vern are living in Omaha at present. Vern and Steven (their youngest boy) are doing mill wright work there. Carrie had a cancer cut out of her breast about a year ago but is feeling fine now. D. D. Leach died at San Fernando Col. a short time ago. And Agnes (Leach) and Harry Langly live at Atwater Cal. We have called on them a couple of times since we have been out here.

Clifford Whitmore [his nephew, son of his brother, Floyd] is still with Standard Oil near Houston, Tex. (You know he is an civil engineer.) Carol I think lives in Huston She was married last summer to a man by the name of Williams, and Mabel is teaching in Phillips South Dakota.

Bruce isn't in college this year altho I think he will be next semester. He got two years at the Univ. of Nebr. but think he will finish out here. He is about my higth but a little heavier (He was 20 Dec 27) Dick was 13 in Oct and is just a wee bit taller than Bruce and weighs 135, guess he will be the large one of the family. He is in the dithth grade and Don was 9 in Aug and weighs 69 pounds. He is growing quite rapidly. He came home from school the other day and told us that he was just sitting still during opening exercises, wasn't doing a thing and a tooth fell out of his lower platte. Flo hadn't much more than left for Nebr. when I got the flu and then the pneumonia. Was in bed four weeks and am just getting around a little now. I went to town for the first time Sat. and got a much needed haricut. This is a nice sunny day and I am sitting on the front porch in the sunshine trying to pick up a little color. I got pretty well bleached out while I was sick. I managed to make Flo. think I wasn't very sick so she stayed in Nebr. till she got her business done but she didn't stop to visit any when she got there. Didn't even get over to Elgin. I shouldn['t have been down so long but my lungs didn't clear up as they should and the Dr. I had first insisted that nature would take care of that but nature didn't so we got another Dr. and he gave me a couple of shots in the arm which cleared my lungs out in a very few days. I am still weak but have a splendid appatite and am eating three meals a day with milk, egg nogs ets. between times so should pick up pretty fast from here on if the weather just stays nice so I can get out in the sun shine every day.

How many were at your Xmas celebration this year? Did Joe ever marry again? Florences sister Alleen lives about two blocks from us and she had the Xmas reunion this year. I think there were 20 there. Flo and I stayed home and they sent our dinner over to us and during the course of the day they all got over to call on us.

I suppose you will think from what I have told you that Calif. is an awful place to live. but I have merely told you a few things that the Chamber of Commerce neglects to mention when advertising Calif. Then too this valley is probably one of the worst places in the staate to live the year around but for that reason it is easier to get work here and so I'm here. If one has time for vacations, it is only a 2-1/2 hr dirve up to General Grant or to Sequoia National Parks in the Siarria Mts. where you can rest under the Giant Redwoods the largest trees in the world. and always find it cool. or in three or four hrs you can be at the beach or if you prefer either Sanfransico or Los Angeles Or if you are situated so you can pick your climate you can find most any climate you want except a rainy one and you might even find a rainy one for awhile in the winter. Nearly every kind of fruit & vegtable is raised in the state but thye don't have the flavor that they do in the east.

Guess I better stop or I will have to send this parcel post Love from Flo. Rol & family. Hope you can find the time to ans this before next Xmas. How is the Wertman family and the eastern Whitmores?

Image Gallery