Modern American Memoirs by Annie Dillard

that day. Back at his hotel that night he wrote her about it.
    â€œDear Elizabeth,” he began. “Today I have been together with our Manager all day, and he told me that it look like I will have to go June first. Business is so bad and getting worse for us, he let four salesmen go here May first so now there is only seven left. Last year there was seventheen. Well it don’t help to worrie, like you said, I have to start a bakery somewhere, do you want to help me if I get one?”
    The following week he called on customers in Providence and Newport, then came back to Boston and began his letter with bad news.
    May 21, 1932:
    â€œDear Elizabeth: Just was at our office, they showed me letters they had written to Swift trying to keep me, but Swift said no, so I am out.”
    He was answering a letter from her in which she said Aunt Pat was going to find her a job.
    â€œHow in the world could Pat get a job for you? You know jobs today don’t hang on trees.”
    And then, the abrupt switch to a more pleasant subject that typified his instinct to look on the bright side:
    â€œNew Port is the nicest place I ever seing.”
    And in the next sentence, the relapse into fear:
    â€œDo you know Elizabeth down in Baltimore is a baker who wanted me affoul bad last time I was there maby I will take the job for a while, how would you like that, would you come and see me, or I come and see you. Business is affoul bad, now they are going to stop this office and only keep three Salesmen, last Summer they hat 32 men here, how people are getting over next vinter, I can’t untherstand. Again thanks for your letter you are a sweet Girl, I will Kiss you when I see you, how is that, love to you and the Children from Oluf.”
    By the summer of 1932 President Hoover’s mere “depression” had become “the Depression” with a capital D. Campaigning for reelection, the President declared, “Prosperity is just around the corner.” Oluf, however, was adjusting his goals downward.
    May 26, 1932:
    â€œDear Elizabeth, I will try to see that Baker in Baltimore on Monday June 6, today I was offered a job here with a Baker he would pay me 45 dollars per week, I told him I would think it over but oh how working in a Bakeshop in the Summer months is hard work.”
    Then, a burst of romantic teasing:
    â€œThat Widow in Pittsburgh has heard about I loosing my job, now she offers me all there is in this world if I will come and run her shop, but I don’t think it will be so great, do you, no I know, you say no, oh how worm it is here this days, and today we hat a Storm a bad one to, a Cann of Blue Berries exploted today in a shop and I got it all over my Close, how is that—not so good,
    â€œLove to you and the Children from Oluf.”
    My mother was writing back to him letter for letter. She kept his stored away for years, not because she realized they constituted a personal history of the Depression, but because she valued them among her most precious treasures. What she said in her letters to him is all lost except for echoes and resonances in his replies. It was not a conventional lovers’ correspondence, despite Oluf’s frequent attempts to strike the chord of passion. He in growing fear, she in her mid-thirties, impoverished, widowed with small children, both were using the mails to shelter them against loneliness.
    Earlier that year Aunt Pat had her first child, a daughter she named Kathleen. By mid-June Oluf had retreated to his properties in western Pennsylvania and wrote a “Dear Friends” letter to the whole family:
    â€œPat you are an affoul bad Girl, not to write me any before, you know I am out of work, and have been for some time, nearly all Echerson Co is out, and soon Swift and all their large Packing Co will be out, I never know how hard times is till when I got back to this town trying to borrow mony, I am glad Allen is working, be sjure to hang on