Failure of all our new adventures…

Notice the watertank in the background and the Land Rover

1961 November 5 Estelle
Letter written by Ina Erickson from the Gurakor Mission station to Durward and Estelle Titus Box 224 Route1, Carlos MN USA 

Dear mom and dad,

I’m sorry I thought I had been mentioning your letters. Yes they’ve been coming. The pictures also. We surely do appreciate them. I like to getting the newspaper clippings also. Al and I have been very well. The climate makes us sleepy, but we really are feeling well and that’s the truth. Paula is cutting some more teeth. I hope this will end for a while but I guess Paula has to get her two-year-old molars yet. Tommy has gotten real drooly and has some bumps but thank goodness he won’t get his for a while yet.
Al has been busy fixing the water tank and eaves trough. The wood was rotting where the trough was so he replaced that and now is pouring cement for a stand for the tank as it was on a wooden foundation that was all but falling down.
You would get a bang out of our showers. They are a bucket with a shower nose in the bottom. On the handle is a rope fed through a pulley system so you can lower it or lift it above your head using the pulley. We fill it while it’s lowered to the floor with warm water and then pull the bucket up and have ourselves a shower.
We do have some difficulty getting the mail to go out. It has to go from somebody’s house. At long last I had access to an oven, so we had meatloaf, baked potatoes and chocolate banana pie with meringue. I still haven’t gotten everything unpacked. I have to go through and paint with a brush insecticide for cockroaches. They are just everywhere. Occasionally one will dive bomb at a light and hit me in the neck and I about go straight up.
I’m going to have to stop nursing Tom and he won’t take a bottle so today I tried him on a cup and he did real well. He continues to be a fat happy baby. Yesterday I planted my garden with peas, carrots, parsley and cabbage, radishes and some muskmelon. We’ll have to see how it grows. OK yes and some rhubarb, chives and horse radish just grow. This is something that you use to make a substitute for oyster soup.
It was good that I didn’t bring my ware-ever cookware. There are so many pans and kettles here.
I do appreciate the juices as we have lemonade nearly every meal. Thank you so much for your tangs. I surely am making use of them.. We had the old cookstove really roaring. I’ll make pizza tonight. It was from a pizza mix that Mrs. H had bought and had used. It surely tasted good.

We also had the radio going. (We had bought Horrolts ‘s radio and phonograph). We heard a church program from America and heard music and news from the voice of America. It sounded so wonderful. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it. Just the music was so delightful and I can see why the Voice of America is an inspiration to those behind the iron curtain and other places. All the church services are held in Jabem so I haven’t understood anything since we’ve been here. Tomorrow we have to go to Lae again to take another case down for the Harralts.

Thanks again for your love, prayers, letters and pictures. Paula is getting to be more like a lady, losing some of her baby ways. She picks up a book and reads away in her jargon. She can close the door and keeps various commands.
God‘s continued blessings. Would you like some New Guinea coffee?
Love Al, Ina, Paula and Tom.

This particular water tank was at Malalo but you get the idea

1961 November 10-ish to Estelle
Letter written by Ina Erickson from the Gurakor Mission station to Durward and Estelle Titus Box 224 Route1, Carlos MN USA .  Received Nov 24

Dear mom and dad,

We surely hope this finds you both busy, well and happy. All is well in the Erickson household. The kids practicing how to drive parents crazy, in a crying session at supper time. Almost successfully sometimes. No more signs of malaria.
The school boys and girls at least one or two are sick every day with it. I really do feel so sorry for them. I give them two of our pills and they are over it in a day or two. One baby had a spleen the size of a football.

Milk separator 1940’s model

We have five cows and three calves on the station so we thought it rather foolish to pay $0.40 a quart. None of the native teachers know how to milk them so I volunteered to break the cows in. So this morning we had fresh milk. I was going to separate it as I had found a tiny separator tucked away in one of the buildings. I had tried putting it together and thought all the parts were present when I dumped the milk and it started spraying out all over especially from a hole in the bottom. Al worked on it but we still don’t know what was wrong so we gave up. Then I tried to churn some butter and cranked and cranked on the old butter churn and got a bunch of foam but no butter. Oh woe is us. Failure of  all our new adventures.
The days are clicking by us very rapidly. They just don’t seem to be enough hours in a day. Sounds like you have been pretty busy yourself. If you run into any single school teachers that want adventure for two years send them their names and we could use all the help we can get. Australian government will subsidize the mission for each one.
Tommy is so playful. He rolls around on the floor, laughs and coo’s. Paula talks to him and he’ll laugh at her. Does she ever like that. He can pull himself up if I hold onto his hands.

How is Grandpa Ben? Send him greetings and love.
My garden isn’t doing very well. I think I need some fertilizer. My green beans and peas are coming pretty well but carrots, rhubarb and parsley aren’t doing too well.
We are working hard on the language. It’s coming slow but sure. Our nights are so comfortable. Tuesday. We are planning to go into Lae later today so will mail a package to Willa to distribute. You can tell her one package of coffee should be divided between you, Beryl and her and one sent to Betty and one to Helen. We didn’t get much roasted and ground. It turned out to be more of a job than I anticipated. And then I broke the grinder so we will have to work on some more for later.

We surely think about and pray for you often. You’re in you needn’t worry about us. We are quite comfortably located and fairly well isolated so we need and worry too much about diseases. God is always present and with comforting and protective arm.
Paula got her thumb squashed in the back of the door. I bandaged it right away and I’ve course she cried. Then later I took the bandage off to see if it was broken. I was examining it and bumped it. Paula looked up and scolded me and said ouch!

Love Al, Ina, Paula and Tom

Gurakor yard