October 5, 1951

About noon, October 5, 1951

Dearest Mother and Daddy,

We just finished our Friday cleaning -- Benton helped me by vacuuming and shaking the rugs, -- and now Benton is up on the hill and I have everything already to heat for dinner, so thought perhaps I could sneak in a note to you. Should have done it before, but I get busy doing things and just don't get to writing at all.

Yestrday we got our release from the lawyer to sign for a settlement of $1000. It is a printed release, and one paragraph states that the fact that they are offering a settlement does not mean that they accept any responsibility in any way whatsoever for the accident. I hate to sign it, yet I almost believe it is the thing. The lawyer went over everything with us, and it doesn't look as if we do have too much fighting chance. Even Harold, who had more hopes before than anyone else did, doesn't think there would be much chance. None of us can believe that Florence was all to blame by any means -- perhaps not to blame in any way, -- but we have no witnesses, and the evidence, be it false or true, which the other side has makes it look as if the truck was simply minding his own business on his own side of the white line, and it would be hard to convince a jury of unprejudiced people otherwise. We were going to try to prove negligence because he didn't sound his horn, but can't prove that at the speed we were both traveling he could really have had time both to blow the horn and swerve at the same time. What we rather think is that probably both our car and the truck were just about on the white line, and niether swerved soon enough, but we can't prove that at all. If we took it to court we probably would get nothing out of it and would just have court costs to pay. However, the only way we could get anything was do what we did -- file a claim and let them offer a settlement. Your letter, Daddy, came yesterday -- I mean day before yesterday, -- and I thought maybe we should go through with the suit. However, when we got the release -- a standard printed form, -- and it said that this payment was in no way an admission of any responsibility of any kind whatsoever, I wondered and Benton had thought for a long time that the lawyer might be crooked because he had waited so long, but then he read an article in a recent Reader's Digest about the courts and how they all got far behind because they had a much greater volume of business in the last several years, but no increase in judges to take care of it. Consequently many cases were delayed and justice was not carried through properly. Now Benton seems to think the lawyer is all right. We surely prayed a lot about it -- even just before we went in to see the lawyer. It is a ridiculously low payment, but I really don't think we have the evidence to win in court, because they in no way accept any responsibility in making this payment.

That surely was sweet of Lucile to wash the woodwork for you. It surely needed it, and you just aren't strong enough to do things like that.

We may be going to Benton's mother's any time now. His man [actually, his patient] is still living, but he may have to drop the case and go anyway in the next week or two. His mother isn't too well -- wants to stay in bed all the time, just doesn't seem to have much interest in doing anything else. She has arthritis, and just doesn't have anything to make her interested in doing anything at all. We probably will be going up in another week or two anyway.

We were so happy to hear about Daddy's raise. The Lord surely does take care of us, doesn't He? Now he will be getting about $20 more than doing the janitor work, and I am sure the work is much easier for him and that he will do much more good doing it.

... [I removed a paragraph here because it was more personal talked about a person who may still be alive.]

I have been busy sewing. Benton's night shirt is all done except taking out the bastings and tacking down the facing around the neck. It took me quite a while to match the plaids -- they are on the bias. Then I have almost finished that blue plaid skirt that you cut out for me while I was in training. I am putting on the waist band. It is going to look very nice. I want it to wear to Portland [where my dad's mother and other members of his family lived].

I didn't iron at all last week, so this week it really piled up as we washed again Monday. Tuesday night I got busy and ironed nine pairs of pants in one evening. I found that I could cut about a third off the time doing a pair when I stood up to iron. That gave me a little courage.

Last Sabbath I had a houseful of company. One of the fellows I used to go to school with at A.U.C. has recently moved to town with his family. I knew they weren't very settled, so invited them home to dinner Sabbath. That was five, and then I invited Art Moores home too. He is the one I used to write to -- the medical student. We were just recovering from that -- had lain down about half an hour when the phone rang and who should be on the other end of the line but Inez Gram Scofield [a childhood friend of my mom]! I got so excited that my headache went away and didn't come back all evening. Here she was in Loma Linda. Her husband now has a Master's degree in pharmacy and is working at the White as of two or three weeks ago. They came out and had supper and spent the evening with me, and we had a wonderful time. But you should have seen the dishes. Everyone had wanted to help me do them, but I hadn't felt like doing them then, so wouldn't let them do it. It took me more than an hour to do them that night, but I just took it easy -- it sort of relaxed me a little. It will be swell to have so many of my friends around handy. I had just a wonderful time.

Well, now it is 12:45, so I'd better wind this up and get my husband something to eat. We love you and pray for you. Do take care of yourselves and don't overdo. We don't want anything to happen to you.

Much, much love,

Lois Ruth and Benton