Puckett Family Papers
Pages
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- Beth Puckett
- A photograph of Beth Puckett wearing a striped dress and seated in a wicker chair in the yard.
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- Beth Puckett
- A photograph of Beth Puckett wearing a striped dress and standing in the yard.
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- Beth Puckett in the yard
- Beth Puckett posing in their yard wearing a short-sleeved dress.
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- Beth Puckett in the yard
- Beth Puckett posing in a new brown suit standing out in the yard.
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- Beth Puckett on the front porch
- A photograph of Beth Puckett sitting on the steps of the porch on their house.
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- Letter from D.W. Norvell to Lewis Puckett
- Letter written by D.W. Norvell to his son-in-law Lewis Puckett who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. Topics include working on projects around the house and updates on Lewis' son Stephen and daughter Sherry.
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- Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (April 1-15, 1945)
- Letters written by Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. Besides expressing affection and longing, topics include the arrival of a package sent home by Lewis, plans for the contents of the package, memories, plans for Easter, health concerns, quarantining, the antics of a boarder, home improvement projects, and visits with friends and family.
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- Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (April 19-29, 1945)
- Letters written by Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. The letters feature frequent expressions of loneliness, longing, and affection. Other topics include a list of the items found in their son Stephen's pockets while doing laundry, their daughter Sherry being nominated for May Queen (and working on the dress for the occasion), gardening, an annoying boarder, taking the children to the movies, social visits, going to Sunday School, home improvement projects, Stephen cutting holes in two of Beth's nicest slips, playing the piano, a waste paper drive, city elections, and listening to the radio.
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- Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (August 1-13, 1945)
- Letters written by Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. The letters include several expressions of affection and longing. Topics include a family vacation at a cabin in Boone, updates on friends and family, the August heat, news from an alumni newsletter, a visit to a disappointing circus, the atomic bomb, encountering acquaintances returned from war zones, birthdays, inquiries about Lewis' daily life in the Navy, going to the movies, and false news of a Japanese surrender.
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- Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (August 15-31, 1945)
- Letters written by Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. The letters include several expressions of affection, loneliness, and longing. Other topics include the announcement of VJ Day, updates on friends and family (including drunk driving accidents and social visits), Beth correcting Lewis on the date of their wedding anniversary, the Navy point system, the removal of daughter Sherry's tonsils and her recovery, toy fads, canning, and military personnel returning home.
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- Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (August 1944)
- Letters written by Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett, who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. In addition to the continued theme of separation, topics frequently discussed include home improvements, clothing, and financial planning; rationing; and the Pucketts' children, about whom Beth writes with both pride and bitterness at being the sole witness to their growth. Subjects of local and regional significance include Mackinaw, Fairy Stone State Park, and the Great Atlantic Hurricane.
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- Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (December 1-22, 1944)
- Letter from Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. The letters include several expressions of affection, loneliness, and longing. Other topics include parents moving, furniture arrangements, decency, looking at maps, enjoying going to see "Arsenic and Old Lace" at the movies, conversations with friends and family, jokes about a particular relative's girlfriend, Christmas cards, books banned from the naval library, updates on the children's behavior, buying stamps and bonds, the family radio, remembering where they were on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked, relatives redecorating, the church Christmas program, frustration over not being able to help Lewis through hardships, Christmas services and parties, shopping and Christmas gifts for the children, and friends' philosophical debates.
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- Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (December 25-31, 1944)
- Letters written by Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. The letters include several expressions of affection, loneliness, and longing. Other topics include the events of Christmas day, war news, Christmas presents, rationing, memories of previous Christmases, waxing chairs, piano lessons, cold weather, visiting relatives, cleaning and running errands, social interactions, annoying acquaintances, financial matters, learning independence, the maturing of their relationship, the lady roomer staying with them at the time, updates on the children's behavior, and frustration over the inconsistency of mail delivery.
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- Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (February, 1945)
- Letters written by Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. The letters include several expressions of affection, loneliness, and longing. Other topics include the inconsistency of mail delivery, care packages, Lewis' gifts (including shell necklaces and grass skirts), improving her cooking, considering taking a job, sending valentines, traveling arrangements and experiences, plumbing issues, having to cut a permanent out of her hair, updates on acquaintances having babies, an annoying boarder's birthday, the misery of having a bad cold, stupid acquaintances, songs playing on the radio as she wrote, the morality of women whose husbands were abroad, immunization shots, a baby abandoned at the railroad station, going to a ballet and opera performance, housework, weighing the children, going to the movies, and updates on friends and family.
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- Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (January 13-28, 1945)
- Letters written by Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. The letters include several expressions of affection, loneliness, and longing. Other topics include their daughter Sherry's eighth birthday, conversations with friends, updates on the children's behavior, exhaustion, the weather, a military joke from Reader's Digest, political news, their relationship history, trust, a request for a snapshot portrait, travel arrangements, observations from people-watching on a trip to Daytona Beach, the tempting possibility of leaving the children with her mother and working in Florida at a hospital for the duration of the war, and the frustrating inconsistency of mail delivery. Also included is a clipping of a poem for the war wife.
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- Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (January 3-10, 1945)
- Letters written by Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. The letters feature frequent expressions of loneliness, longing, and affection. Other topics include housework, social interactions, errands, memories, conversations with other women about having to manage households on their own, making airplane models with their son Stephen, cutting their daughter Sherry's hair, the psychological strain of the home front, the emotional connection brought by hanging up a map Lewis sent home, rationing, playing the piano, snippets of poetry, updates on the children's behavior, the lengths to which one must go to find tobacco in stores, updates on friends and acquaintances, upcoming birthdays, the draft, and immunization shots.
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- Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (July 1944)
- Letters written by Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett, who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. Recurring topics include the infantile paralysis (Polio) epidemic, the Pucketts' children (Sherry and Stephen), travel, and expenditures. In her portrayal of life on the home front, Beth repeatedly emphasizes the emotional difficulty of being separated from Lewis and expresses anxiety about being responsible for the household finances.
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- Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (July 20-28, 1945)
- Letters written by Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. Topics include their children Stephen and Sherry enjoying gifts sent home by Lewis (a Japanese sword and slippers, respectively), yard work, the price of tomatoes, managing money, Beth putting herself on an orange juice and cream diet to make herself gain weight, and a family vacation to a cabin in Boone.
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- Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (July 4-17, 1945)
- Letters written by Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. Topics include a heat wave in Greensboro, social interactions, gossip, longing for Lewis' return, going to the movies, housework, fearing change, scheduling their daughter Sherry's tonsillectomy, shortages of meat and sugar, and clothes shopping for the children.
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- Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (June 18-25, 1945)
- Letters written by Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. Topics include the permanence of marriage, loyalty and doubts, friends and family working towards being prepared for Lewis' eventual return, visits to a local pool, frustrations with a boarder, food shortages, relatives visiting, and housework.
