tuesday: i worked on these over sunday and monday, using a group of letters to vera d. bruestle in pennsylvania from 1936 to 1945. i included parts of the envelopes and parts of the letters, so that i printed an image on both to see how i wanted to use them. then i decided to make two sets out of the combinations of them. 

again i drew the images on the ipad from old photos. this time from a set of photos coming from the same family. 

i am finding that the inking pen i am using in procreate is leaving a very bitmapped line, so i am going to try another brush tonight. 

Vera, I think I am pregnant and I am not taking it well enough to suit me…

The other day I let myself read one of those horror tales in the Digest, captioned “Lest We Forget” about a camp for systematic annihilation of captive peoples, established by the Nazis in Poland. When such stories first began coming out about Germans and Japan, I said they couldn’t be true – not all of them anyhow. But if only a small percentage are true and a so called Christian nation, like Germany, could countenance such barbarism under the name of advanced thinking and expediency, what kind of world is it to bring children into?…

The fact that the strong elements of cruelty and ruthlessness can get into power and direct a country’s course as they have in Germany just proves we cannot adapt a strict “hands off” policy toward other nations. I think we should decide never to allow dictatorships or oligarchies to come into being in any country. They may start out in all benevolence, but become antisocial and difficult to curb later.

I think some Republicans and anti-Roosevelt congressmen are going about with chips on their shoulders, eager to assert their authority…

The boot licking American public is probably more responsible for the dog incident than Elliot or his wife…

Ethel Stock

Pennsburg, PA, February 15, 1945

letter to vera

Lest we forget!