OWF: 1918-2012

We've been in beautiful Northern California, helping clean out the home of Mr FS's beloved father. Mr FS comes from a family of letter writers (and savers!), so we have--just to mention two pertaining to frugal subjects--a letter from his grandmother Faith to her husband (away on work?) just after the stock market crash of 1929 ("I know we can make it") and letters from his father to his own father enumerating his expenses at Harvard in 1936 (laundry was $6).

We also appreciated thousands of books, mostly poetry, sad that we had to leave most behind.

Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths—
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness—
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to bring sweet-smelling pears
And plums in ponderous piles. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.