Volume 5: Falling Outs, Senior Fairs, Faith, and Uncle William
Omaha, Nebr. Apr. 26, 1908
2132 N. 29th St
Dear Harry: –
I haven’t written to you since I got my cards. Well I got three B’s and an A. I got A in English and B in the other three studies, Writing, Physiology, and Algebra. I suppose Alma told her marks. Vera Turner got two B’s and two A’s and Anna Sorenson got three A’s and one C. So I think I did about as good as any of them.
We went to the Senior Fair Friday night with Alma and Mrs. Jensen. Marion don’t think it was as good as last year but I think it was better. They didn’t have so much to sell but then It was very nice. We went to the two best shows and they were very good. I will send you the programs of “The Revenge of Shari-Hot-Su”, the big show in Room 204. The Hall was decorated with the Seniors colors – pink & white and where they sold the ice they had big branches.
Us girls are going to be confirmed this year. Now aren’t you surprised. Yes sir, May 17. Father Diggs was up to call on mamma and of course they talked about confirmation and ma said she would ask papa. She did & he said we could. Last Friday we went for our first lesson. We were the only ones but that was a special lesson and so now we go on Tuesday with the rest of them.
The lilacs are out now and they smell so pretty. I wish you could come home in June. Ma may come to see you then. About how many hours will you have to study then? Charlie will be along of course if they come.
Harry, everything we can’t find here at home we say, “Harry’s got it,” and it seems to me you must have everything.
I had my picture taken a few weeks ago and so I will send you one. That is my new hat. You could call it a “merry Widow” only its cut off in the front.
Papa is going to write so I will put my letter with his.
Harry Hough and I have had a fall out. He wrote a letter to me and he was rather mad and silly & he swore in it & wanted to know how much I loved him and called you all kinds of names because you don’t write. Well I answered & if I didn’t give it to him. I was so mad that I wrote right away and took it down to the post-office. I received a letter a few days after begging to be forgiven and I haven’t answered it yet and I won’t till I get good and ready. I guess he was only in fun but I wasn’t. I suppose you will give me a lot of advise like a good brother and with so many to give advise I ought to know how to act & write when a young man has no respect for me.
Last Sunday, Papa went to the P.O. and he didn’t get Alma’s letter because she never said anything about it and in the afternoon she came up for it thinking we had got it but Pa didn’t think he better when he never got special permission, and I don’t blame him because I wouldn’t stand on my head for her. She went home dis-appointed & the next day she had the blews and of course I had to be nice to her so she wouldn’t say I acted funny. My but they are nice now. They hug and kiss you but I know its all put on and you bet they don’t hug and kiss me unless I can help it. Now don’t tell them I told you.
Say Harry we got a new clock for our dining room. The works are in a glass case. Pa is through his letter so I better be through mine so by by.
Lillian – 1912
[In ink at bottom of Lillian’s letter, different handwriting]
Now Harry Don’t you dare tell your Uncle that I may come. I realy did not wanted you to know So soon but Lillian is a teddletail
Your Ma
There may have been a flirtation between seventeen-year-old Harry and almost-sixteen-year-old Lillian, but clearly Lillian was holding her own in the realm of courtship. One can’t help but be impressed and proud of Lillian for telling off a young man who disrespected her and her brother (even if it was in jest, as he claimed.) Harry Hough was born in Omaha on 2 January 1891, the oldest of six children born to Paul Hough and Elizabeth (Killday) Hough. Eighteen months older than Lillian and less than eighteen months younger than Lillian’s brother Harry, “H.H.” as Lillian often refers to him was well placed to be a friend of both Lillian and Harry. By 1910 the Hough family, including Harry, lived 140 miles away in Pierce, Nebraska, but there are signs H.H. remained a frequent visitor to Omaha. Harry eventually returned permanently, but his childhood flirtation with Lillian was long over. Their friendship, at least, survived this falling out.
The Senior Fair at Omaha High School began in 1906 as a way to raise money for projects. The 1908 Senior Fair, as seen from the program Lillian kindly included with her letter to her brother, was an ambitious affair and a fascinating, if not always politically correct by modern standards, exploration of turn-of-the-century entertainment. The central importance of the high school in their lives is also apparent in her letters in smaller ways: this is the first letter where Lillian signs her letters with her graduating class date, a tradition she continues in later letters.
Speaking of a fascinating look at the period, Lillian’s new hat in the style of a “merry widow” is a fun glimpse into Edwardian fashion. The “merry widow,” a.k.a. the very large, broad-brimmed hats often heavily decorated and frequently worn at a jaunty angle, was one of the defining elements of what we know today as Edwardian style. The name comes from the opera, The Merry Widow, which debuted on Broadway in 1907, and more specifically its lead, Lily Elsie, a trendsetter who increased the popularity of the large hats and associated them forever with the opera of the same name. Arguably, Lillian’s version of this hat was likely nothing like the enormous, feathered, horribly impractical creations popular in most surviving prints and photos from the period, but does probably refer to a comparatively large, broad-brimmed, decorated hat. Deep in the family archives was a postcard of Lillian and “Freda” wearing similar hats (below); this may be the picture Lillian referenced in her letter, as it is appropriate to the period and the date.
Once again, we see Lillian’s interesting opinion of Alma Jensen, her brother’s sweetheart, and the rest of the Jensen family, with all the honesty of a fifteen-year-old. Alma was only eight months older than Lillian, though ahead of her in school. Clearly, Alma (and her family) were a frequent presence in the Parsons’ lives, but less clear is whether Lillian’s friendship with Alma is genuine, or merely tolerance for the girl who was clearly so important to Harry.
Lillian’s mention of confirmation for “us girls” (assuming Lillian and Marion) is noteworthy. “Father Diggs” refers to the Reverend R.R. Diggs, who arrived to St. John’s Episcopal Church in Omaha in January of 1908. Father Diggs found a congregation that was not regularly attending church or tithing, and a church that was deeply in debt. Unfortunately, despite his strenuous and largely successful efforts to rebuild local engagement with the church and to repay the debt he inherited, Father Diggs resigned in 1910 and St. John’s closed in February of 1912.[1] As Swedes, it is easy to assume that Ida and Nels were Lutherans, but it appears they were not. They were married in 1889 by a pastor at the Second Presbyterian Church, and this reference suggests that the family made the switch to the Episcopal faith sometime later. Ida’s obituary from many years later identifies her as a member of Trinity Cathedral, the Episcopal cathedral in central Omaha.
Ida (Carlson) Parsons, aka ‘Ma’, was a Swedish immigrant who learned English only after arriving to Omaha in the early 1880s. She was the first of the family to arrive and made it possible for her parents and younger brother, William Carlson, to follow. William was in Omaha by 1888 when he signed as witness to the marriage of Ida to Nels Parsons (Pa), Lillian’s father. William lived in Chicago by 1900, when he married Hulda Lofgren, a fellow Swedish immigrant, so he would have been well placed as Harry’s closest family in Chicago when Harry went off to school at the Armour Institute. It was William to whom Ida was referring in her handwritten addendum to Lillian’s letter, calling her daughter a tattle-tale and asking Harry not to tell his uncle they were thinking of visiting. This isn’t the only sample of Ida’s handwriting we have, but it is the only time we see it in Lillian’s letters.
Want to read more?
Volume 1: Lillian and her Letters
Volume 2: November 4th, 1907
Volume 3: Sweethearts or Sisters and…Candy!
Volume 4: School Stories
[1] James M. Robbins, Jr., “A History of the Episcopal Church in Omaha from 1856 to 1964,” University of Nebraska at Omaha (1965), p. 148.
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