Marcia Kirwan Standley Papers

9-25-63

Dear Mother & Daddy,

Well, we did the covered wagon bit in reverse. The trailer tried to do it sideways, but after many adjustments, Jim finally got it to follow in the conventional manner, from Nebraska on. Right after we got to Mass., it began to rain, & since we were coming down the Berkshires, the tlr. began to slide & sway, so we took the first turnoff that looked close to Boston & found a motel. We were in Framingham, which is supposed to be 20-30 min. from downtown Boston, where the school is, but it took us up to 2 hrs in this fantastic traffic. We have good maps from 3A & Standard Oil, but they don't show construction detours, no left turns, and many of the street & highway signs fell down & never were put up again. By the time I found my way home from school at night, had dinner in a restaurant, & got the kids settled down, it was a little late to go house hunting in the rain. Jim saw one that looked good in the paper, in Cambridge, which is near the school, & which was reccomended to us as a good rental area by several people. We finally got thru by phone to the owner who told us to see the supt. at the bldg. His phone was constantly busy, but she said go over anyway, as late as necessary. After getting lost over a few tall bridges on the way to Connecticut, we arrived at 11:00 P.M, but the guy was very nice. There were vacant apts. The first one we looked at was on the 3rd floor, up stairs about 3 ft. wide. It was nice, & we spent almost 5 min. admiring it before it occurred to us that we'd never get our furniture up

2 those stairs. The refrigerator must have come in thru the window. The other apt, he was hesitant to show since it had just been vacated by some rather destructive people. It was a mess, but right in front, on the 1st floor, with the incinerator chute right outside the kitchen door, & the parking lot & a supermarket right outside the backdoor, right above a basement where we can keep the bikes, & which is big enough for the kids to ride theirs on rainey days. The washers & dryer are in the adjoining basement. They supply heat & water, & there is a fenced playard with grass and trees & a sandbox & swings, also a barbecue area for us big kids. The Catholic church & school are a block away, & they have a nice bell that is hooked up to a loud speaker from 7am to 6pm. It strikes the hour round the clock & rings the Angelus at 7AM, 12pm. & 6pm. We're 15 min. + traffic from school. Automobile now is right across the st. from my school, but since Cambridge is such an Urban suburb, Jim hopes to get a job within walking distance of this place. We rented it at midnite with occupancy date somewhat indefinite, since it had to be cleaned up & we had to be approved by the landlord, who is customarily incommunicado during the Jewish holiday which started that nite. With some apprehension, we all came back the next day to see it again. It was still a mess, but the supt's wife had gotten thru to the landlord, reccomended us highly, explained our motel trailer predicament, & gotten permission for us to move right in. Her husband promised to swamp it out as soon as possible. It looked

3 pretty good in the daytime, too, so we measured the windows & hustled off to a curtain & drapery sale we'd seen in Framingham. We draped the whole place for less than $30 & we also have venetian blinds which Jim scrounged from the various basements & rebuilt. He also weatherstripped all the windows which are steel sash. The building is about 10 yrs. old, all steel construction in the framework & mesh-lath, brick exterior, plaster interior, very fire & sound-proof. We consider ourselves very lucky.

The public schools in Boston & Cambridge are lousy & some don't have kindergardens. The local one does, but I'm looking for an all-day nursery school combination like we had before. There's one on the corner of the next block, but I'm going to check it out some more. Everything like that here is licensed by the city boards of health. The kids are doing fine, but they are getting a little sick of each other. The weather just cleared, so they are just beginning to meet some of the other kids in the bldg. They have been building all kinds of tall, skinney buildings with their blocks & construction sets, "apartment houses" which really do resemble the local skyline.

We are just beginning to reach a settled state, with clothes put away & pictures on the wall. We aren't going to have to buy any furniture. The bookcases fit perfectly on either side of the front living-room window & the table you got is so big that I can use one end for a desk & we can eat off other end. That's really a nice table. Thank you very much for tracking it down for us.

Right now, Jim is busy getting the hi-fi set up. Later on, we'll build the tuner kit which we brought along.