Comments from the typist

Since I started this blog, several years have passed and I have only scratched the surface of these letters.  I am not sure why I slowed down on typing them.  Maybe because I felt disloyal to my mother-in-law, Stanley's sister, for exposing her brother's life to anyone who would read these letters.  Maybe... Muriel has since passed away and I feel like none of this will hurt her any more.

It is interesting to me to replace these letters in their historical context.  I am discovering things I probably would never have thought of had I not started this project.

Stanley was not a happy person, I don't think.
Why did they keep him at Fort Sam Houston?  Was he that good a trainer that they could not do without him or did they hold him back because they could sense he was different?  We have not gotten to the part where he vents his frustration about not being transferred, but we have seen his bigotry and his racist tendencies.  I wish I could remove those parts as it really offends me to read, let alone 'repeat', the offensive words.

However it is interesting to read how important plant life was to him.  It seems to be a topic of conversation that the whole family enjoyed back then.  Later in life, he attended to the gardens of Hollywood stars such as Vincent Price, Gayle Patrick-Jackson, Lucille Ball, Carry Grant, Sidney Poitier...  He was never as famous as he would like to have been and maybe it is because in those days the stars were more accessible and also that his Aunt Nina, and her husband Bill Baker were part of the "in-crowd" but he definitely developed his taste for fine things.
According to my mother-in-law, Cliffton Webb was a regular at their house.  His homosexuality was surely suspected even back then but it was only ever guessed at among the family until after his death at which time we found evidence confirming the suspicion: suggestive letters from one of his friends.

My mother-in-law had not been close to her brother for many years and from what we read in the correspondence he was never too complimentary of her.  He had a close relationship with his mother and took care of both of his parents until they died, and they could not have been easy as his father Wayne Safford suffered a stroke in 1981 that paralyzed him almost completely until his death 2 years later.  His mother Grace Whelchel Safford had long been battling Parkinson's disease.  His military medical training enabled him to keep both of his parents at home through their health troubles.  Stanley remained cantankerous and racist to the end, watching his parents' house swallowed up into a high crime district, still fearless enough to spew out vulgarities at his neighbors.
On one of the trips following Stanley's death, my husband and his brothers decided to sleep in the cars right outside the house...  Not the smartest idea but nothing happened to them.

The houses were eventually sold and sadly enough the lemon trees that had been the pride of my husband's grandparents were cut down by the new owners.  Stanley had long abandoned the care of the landscape around the house and although one of the two houses was sold at fair market value, the second was practically given away as the tenant began vandalizing it and long distance maintenance just wasn't feasible for a long term.

There was never a tribute given to him.  He had a military funeral and was buried at Riverside National Cemetery but no family was present.  We tried to inform the family who was still in California but when you reach his age and have never married or never had children, most of those who knew you are gone or unable to go pay their respect.  It is my hope that this blog will honor his memory and stand as a sign of gratitude for the time he spent in the US Army during World War II.


RIP, Uncle Stanley!