HvS | 1946 – Dublin, Montreal

[Links to other years]

By 1946, ERM was working for U.N.
agency I.C.A.O, to be based in
Montreal.

Hilda Marlin

3728 Northampton Street NW

Washington D.C. 15

Feb 25, 1946

Dearest Husband.

I have already written you what I think about going to Ireland. [This plan worked out, five years later. The Marlins lived in Europe 1951-1955, after several vacations in Europe. –JTM]

I'll be able to pay for it and I think it is the right thing to do, considering the fact that Mother [Olga van Stockum] isn't getting any younger and she really should see her relations. I even thought if we could leave the children in good hands, Mother and I could take two weeks off to go to Holland and see Jan [her younger brother, who died soon after]. But of course, there are drawbacks too.

For:

It is almost as expensive to send the children to camp as to go there. I'd have to send four this year. You don't know whether you'd find a house – you've been promising a house for the past nine months, and it is unfair to leave us another summer in Washington. The maids are getting later and less efficient every day, it is high time we went. We'll have to go to Europe sometime and it may as well be when we have no house so we save that. Also, you can claim either the equivalent of our Washington-Montreal Trip, or passage from Dublin-Montreal out of your organization [ICAO], since they can't have it both ways - they owe that to us and it will lessen expenses. Then, in this initial stage you'll be free to do all the traveling you want and you'll have plenty of time to look for a house in Montreal. And if the organization meanwhile decides to move it has saved us a lot of fuss. For the children it will be a very broadening experience and they are wild with delight over it. So is mother.

Against:

Providing I get passports and a place on a boat it is possible that it wouldn't be so easy to go back. The troop movement to America is terrific and so are the wives. Miffy seemed to doubt the likelihood of our getting back. Cook's was less sombre. But of course I'd hate to travel with all these children during crowded condition. Would you be prepared to have us stay away, say, till the following spring? Because I am bound in honor to say that's what might happen. I personally wouldn't mind that, since I don't believe you'll be around much anyway and I feel I'd probably see you as often in Dublin as anywhere else. 

It would also make it easier for me to pay if I had only to worry about one trip at the time. (They don't issue return tickets.) Of course then the problem remains what to do with the furniture – you'd have to put it in storage and you know what the Wagners got into when it came to storage. It would have to be well tabulated etc. and you'd have to do it. And I'd have to have my bank deposit transferred to, I guess, Montreal and another safe deposit box. You'd simply have to help. I couldn't do it all alone. I would take enough stuff with me for a year, in case.

You see, it isn't by any means as simple as it sounds, but I can't help feeling that it is the right thing to do. I shall tell you exactly how we stand financially. I have at present one thousand dollars on the bank with one thousand dollars more expected from The Junior Guild. You got a check of about four hundred and fifty dollars of which I sent one hundred dollars to your mother who has had an awful time, a doctor, cleaning her ear, pierced her eardrum and it abcessed and she had to go to a specialist. She suffered terribly. Also, I took money for the girls’ trip to New York, which was about twenty dollars, counting taxis etc. (They are coming home today.) So you have now three hundred twelve dollars and fifty cents.

Then we have in War bonds:

– of the children’s bond value $300.00, present value $221.11

– of us    "                     "               $3475.00,  "                        " $2971.15

I hope to buy with February's money another one hundred dollars which would bring it up to $3046.15

I am in bed with grippe, the second time. Haven't been at all well. It sort of struck me as funny that if someone died here we wouldn't even know how to notify you.

Well, it was you who suggested going to Ireland but you can understand how the idea delights me. I am so sick of Washington. It would be good for the children too. 

I should like to send Johnny to the Montessori School in Blackrock. Mother and I were just saying he is the perfect Montessori child and it is a shame that he doesn't live where he can get that kind of training. And it wouldn't be fair to Harrie [Jameson Kirkwood, in Dublin] to deprive her of Mother when she is so sick. Couldn't you manage to get more work in Ireland so we could stay there for a year? I promise not to ask for any more. As a matter of fact, I should like to see Montreal and it would be a disappointment if that didn't come off. But Paris would be even better. I am going to the passport office as soon as I am better. Please forgive the scribble. And write oftener.

Love, Hilda

P.S. Olga's Sister instructed them on sex. She said if they wanted to know anything to go to their parents. So Olga said: "Of course, I'd go to you. I'd hate to go to Daddy, he isn't the type!!