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May Tangen Christmas Letters, 1961-1974

Tangen Christmas Letter, 1966 - Back

sickness of mankind. For the Vietnamese, I adopted late last fall through Foster Parents, Inc., a Vietnamese child, a girl named Tran Thi Hao, who writes sweet letters of thanks, hoping for MY safety, -me, whose only danger is that my old Size-14 dresses are likely to pop their seams and show my underwear. I rush toward my newer size-16's for safety.

Yet how funny to be so safe and then in July to go to a weekend wedding and be kicked by a horse, to be laid up for two weeks, feeling so lucky and so well and enjoying the middle-of-the-summer-school leisure so much that I couldn't get a fat laugh off my face. It happened the day after my neice Correen's wedding in St. Paul. Some of us left-over relatives went out to a horse farm on Sunday morning, a startled Palemeno bounded forward, I, in his path, fell back and hit my head on concrete, and he, barely touching me with his shoe, nicked my shin as he turned aside. The welt on my head and on my shin grew big and black, bone damage was suspected, and instead of Smorgasbord with the family I was in the hospital. For three days I enjoyed $30-a-day care, the $200's worth of the tests (even electrocardiograph and electroencephalograph), and a different story to tell. Payments were made by Blue Cross and Blue Shield, I read a book and napped, got rides in wheel chairs, was attended by my very good friend Hazel and my sister Gladys, mother of the bride. My greatest joy was being told by the doctor that the incisions made todraw off the spoonful of coagulated blood in the hemotomas on my head and leg must be watched and that I couldn't leave St. Paul for another week. I moved out of the hospital to Gladys and Roy's house and enjoyed Gladys' week of vacation, getting in some good games of canasta during her leisure.

In this year, my nineteenth at the University of Iowa, the new president and the new dean moved the powers and we got our library air-conditioned. The heavy humidity of Iowa summer, coupled with the humidity and heat that comes naturally in an over-populated small room, was gone. I hope the day will come soon when we realize that air-cooling systems are as necessary as heat in the winter.

Vacations were various: a week in June with Hazel Hegland and Lillian Bredlie Gorter near Danbury, Wisconsin, started beautifully and the fun was enhanced by the visit of Dan and Myrtly Phillips (Myrtle Sanders from our MSTC days). But Hazel broke her arm falling off the tee mound when we were golfing. She kept hoping it was only a sprain but when the pain had to be reckoned with, the doctor found a break, kept her in the hospital overnight and let her out with a cast the next day. Such spunk - she played canasta (using a rig-up of cardboard boxes and rubber bands to hold her cards) and anagrams with us that evening, but it would have been well if we had babied her instead, as she was still in her cast and weary of it when I had my horse incident in St. Paul over a month later. 

The second vacation was a week in New York, educating myself. {Handwritten between paragraphs and up margin and across top of letter:  Can't say I liked N.Y., but I do have the feeling of knowing which is more satisfying than good time, really. Took circle tour around Manhattan,  subway to Battery Park and out to Statue of Liberty will go back when they have the Ellis Island immigrants museum and look up the record of my people - U N of course, movie on Broadway, Central Park, but stayed away from horses, Public Library to look up Mary Lou's address in Iowa city telephone directory (found it), Grey Lines Tour of Manhattan, room at Barbicon Hotel for Women.}  I came back from that and went directly to St. Paul to join my sister Gladys and her husband, now with no children at home any more as Tom joined the Marines and Correen was married, and drive up to Shaminau Acres near Motley, Minnesota, to reune with all Tangens and inlaws. I stayed on a few days afterward with my sister Minnie and her husband, who had rented the cabin that held all the reunioneers. Various brothers and sisters came visiting and prolonged the festivities into a glorious week.

Then, as a dessert to end the vacation season Gladys Bartholow bussed Charlotte Weaver and me to western Iowa and Minnesota during Labor Day weekend, seeing Minnie and Albert in Sac City, the Pipestone Park, and the geological wonders of glacial Lake Aggasiz (Red River Valley) and River Warren (now Minnesota River).

May Jan 2, 12:15 a.m.

Saving...

sickness of mankind. For the Vietnamese, I adopted late last fall through Foster Parents, Inc., a Vietnamese child, a girl named Tran Thi Hao, who writes sweet letters of thanks, hoping for MY safety, -me, whose only danger is that my old Size-14 dresses are likely to pop their seams and show my underwear. I rush toward my newer size-16's for safety. Yet how funny to be so safe and then in July to go to a weekend wedding and be kicked by a horse, to be laid up for two weeks, feeling so lucky and so well and enjoying the middle-of-the-summer-school leisure so much that I couldn't get a fat laugh off my face. It happened the day after my neice Correen's wedding in St. Paul. Some of us left-over relatives went out to a horse farm on Sunday morning, a startled Palemeno bounded forward, I, in his path, fell back and hit my head on concrete, and he, barely touching me with his shoe, nicked my shin as he turned aside. The welt on my head and on my shin grew big and black, bone damage was suspected, and instead of Smorgasbord with the family I was in the hospital. For three days I enjoyed $30-a-day care, the $200's worth of the tests (even electrocardiograph and electroencephalograph), and a different story to tell. Payments were made by Blue Cross and Blue Shield, I read a book and napped, got rides in wheel chairs, was attended by my very good friend Hazel and my sister Gladys, mother of the bride. My greatest joy was being told by the doctor that the incisions made todraw off the spoonful of coagulated blood in the hemotomas on my head and leg must be watched and that I couldn't leave St. Paul for another week. I moved out of the hospital to Gladys and Roy's house and enjoyed Gladys' week of vacation, getting in some good games of canasta during her leisure. In this year, my nineteenth at the University of Iowa, the new president and the new dean moved the powers and we got our library air-conditioned. The heavy humidity of Iowa summer, coupled with the humidity and heat that comes naturally in an over-populated small room, was gone. I hope the day will come soon when we realize that air-cooling systems are as necessary as heat in the winter. Vacations were various: a week in June with Hazel Hegland and Lillian Bredlie Gorter near Danbury, Wisconsin, started beautifully and the fun was enhanced by the visit of Dan and Myrtly Phillips (Myrtle Sanders from our MSTC days). But Hazel broke her arm falling off the tee mound when we were golfing. She kept hoping it was only a sprain but when the pain had to be reckoned with, the doctor found a break, kept her in the hospital overnight and let her out with a cast the next day. Such spunk - she played canasta (using a rig-up of cardboard boxes and rubber bands to hold her cards) and anagrams with us that evening, but it would have been well if we had babied her instead, as she was still in her cast and weary of it when I had my horse incident in St. Paul over a month later. The second vacation was a week in New York, educating myself. {Handwritten between paragraphs and up margin and across top of letter: Can't say I liked N.Y., but I do have the feeling of knowing which is more satisfying than good time, really. Took circle tour around Manhattan, subway to Battery Park and out to Statue of Liberty will go back when they have the Ellis Island immigrants museum and look up the record of my people - U N of course, movie on Broadway, Central Park, but stayed away from horses, Public Library to look up Mary Lou's address in Iowa city telephone directory (found it), Grey Lines Tour of Manhattan, room at Barbicon Hotel for Women.} I came back from that and went directly to St. Paul to join my sister Gladys and her husband, now with no children at home any more as Tom joined the Marines and Correen was married, and drive up to Shaminau Acres near Motley, Minnesota, to reune with all Tangens and inlaws. I stayed on a few days afterward with my sister Minnie and her husband, who had rented the cabin that held all the reunioneers. Various brothers and sisters came visiting and prolonged the festivities into a glorious week. Then, as a dessert to end the vacation season Gladys Bartholow bussed Charlotte Weaver and me to western Iowa and Minnesota during Labor Day weekend, seeing Minnie and Albert in Sac City, the Pipestone Park, and the geological wonders of glacial Lake Aggasiz (Red River Valley) and River Warren (now Minnesota River). May Jan 2, 12:15 a.m.