American Embassy
Teheran Iran
Sep. 9 1945
Luther My Son
Your letter of Aug. 9 just arrived and I'm surely pleased to have it. it may be that there'll be time for another before my A.P.O. privileges are over on 15th. After that I don't know how or when your letters will come, and I'll surely be anxiously waiting. It has been wonderful to have had A.P.O. It often took 3 months for letters from home before A.P.O. opened up to me.
Our boys are leaving very fast for home and are they glad to be on their way. there will be only a very small contingent here after 15th.
I just had a nice letter from Pat. She was at home with full responsibility while mother was on a General Board trip to Idaho. Can you feature your baby sister as a full grown woman? We'll find many changes when we get back. One I'm having difficulty in picturing is the change from boyhood to mature manhood that I know has happened in your own case. You know, my son, it is over 6 years since you and I have seen much of each other. When I dream of you it is always the same, you are still the boy whom I loved so much that it hurt, and always there is some repetition on some of the wonderful companionship that we had together. Sometimes then is a repetition of some of the anxious moments or something similar. Once it seemed that we were in a raging torrent and became separated just before I awoke and I did not sleep any more that night. But always I have received the comforting assurance that you were alright. I do think our kind and Heavenly Father for preserving your life during those dreadful days and I pray constantly that we all may be spared to gather again around our Family after and enjoy the comforting influence of each other's companionship soon, very soon. I am thinking very often of the time when we can be together again to pick up our lives where we left off so long ago. I pray also that there will be no one missing from our home circle.
I'm grateful to you my son, for your love and confidence and for your prayers in my behalf. I need thi sustaining influence that comes only in that way. Your confidence in me has been one of the strongest influences in my life and I pray always to be able to measure up to it.
I'm very thankful to say that I have the confidence and trust of many. yes a majority of the people in this country. That has been a great factor in bringing about any success achieved in my labors here. I've been surprised many times to have men of prominence, whom I had not known personally. come to me and say that they know me and praise me. for the work I'm trying so hard to do.
Yes, today I spent the day with such a man, His Excellency Mr Zarrin Kafsh, formerly Minister to England, and before that, Secretary of the Legation in America. I took him, his wife and two sons to their village yesterday, out about 35 miles in the country. They brought refreshments and we enjoyed a very pleasant outing. they wanted my help in solving their water shortage problem. I had previously asked them to sink some test wells which they did. One of these had been dug down to where water was seeping in. I went down and dug it deeper, penetrated a hard pan, broke thru to coarse gravel and up came a heavy flow of splendid water that rose over three feet in a few minutes. A small stream close by carried a flow of saline water not fit to use. But in the shallow well, only 15 feet deep, the water is good.
I outlined a plan for digging an open pit 12 feet long in the bottom and 6 or 7 feet wide in the bottom with flatly sloping sides up to a point where the banks will stand vertically . This will provide water sufficient for a good sized pump and will give adequate water for a lovely tract of splendid land where they can establish a new village. Incidentally this is a new means of obtaining water in this country so I'm justified in giving it my personal attention for the good it will do in opening up thousands of hectares that cannot be developed by the old laborious method of digging kamats. (underground channels). for leading the water out by gravity. In this case the kamat
It would be at least 2 to 3 kilometres long and would cost a prohibitive price. This way we'll have the water out in time for fall planting. I'm delighted to help such people as these for they have never devoted their time to making money the usual way i.e. by using public funds for personal purposes. I must not write too much of this; but I'll have plenty to tell you when we have a chance to talk together.
Before we left the place yesterday we laid out the work to be done and started the men out digging the pit. I'll go back and install a pump when I can locate an engine to operate one that I have in store, and maybe I can find a tractor for plowing a strip of land and thus see the project on its way before I leave for home.
That is the kind of service that I am best fitted to render. I could devote all my time to the spectacular things that engineers like best to do, but somehow I prefer to get close to the people and help them with their problems. Sometimes it is a whole group of communities and I've been successful in these undertakings also. But I haven't bone in for the big jobs that would be almost impossible of accomplishment under present day conditions. We have made surveys and have planned many such projects but it has been very difficult to carry them thru. Some have been done, others are under way, others are "hanging fire" until conditions change.
Now, son, about you and us. I don't know yet how I shall be able to go home. Transportation is very difficult just now because of the heavy demand on ships by the returning soldiers. So I'll have to go best way I can. It would be wonderful if I could go by way of France, but I have little hope of being able to do so, and you may be on your way any time, so I have the feeling that we had better not count on it too much. However, we'll see what develops, and do our best to manage it.
Just now there are many people on waiting lists and no promise of relief. So i'll be lucky just to find a way to reach home by Christmas. That is the goal I'm setting and I'll do my best to make it. You surely will be home by Christmas. However, we must do our best to keep each other posted and, if possible, that you remain longer than time to be home for Christmas. I'll do my best to see you where you are or at some rest center that you can reach. For it wouldn't be any good to be home for Christmas with you away. If necessary we'll spend a few dollars for cable grams if it be that letters take too long after A.P.O. goes out-. Maybe I can send you another A.P.O. number, for one of the camps down on the gulf, and arrange to use it myself after Sept 15. I'll do it if possible, for the regular mail will be terribly slow.
I've sent a package home already while I can. These contain a few (?) and some reasonably good things for mom and the girls for Christmas. It is hard to find much for the boys or the little ones. Guess it doesn't matter too much. it is being together again that really counts.
I'll try to send you another note before my A.P.O. is cut off on 15th. You will have to write me at American Embassy, Teheran, Iran, by regular mail, until further notice.
Keep your chin up my boy, It will not be long now until we can make a new start! God bless you always
Your loving Dad.
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