Letter, Charles and Anna Mantinband to friends; December [1953?]

              Letter, Charles and Anna Mantinband to friends; [1953?]
Transcript

[Address extracted]
Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Season's Greetings, You-all! Or, as we say in Hebrew, Sholom u'vrocho

The idea of a personal saga, despatched occasionally to our friends the world over, has recurred from time to time, But you know what happens to good intentions. Now there comes to us in rapid succession a series of such stories. From Jim Read, whom we have not seen since the Hitler days, now UN Deputy Commissioner for Refugees at Geneva; from Burr Harrington, having left India long behind, and now in West Virginia; from Dr. Beittel, after a year of travel, at Beloit College. Our Friendship with Helen Harder goes back to 1917; always at this season comes her megillah from Lansing, Mich.

Two years back we deserted a happy berth in Northern Alabama - the TVA area, if you remember - to penetrate the wilds of Mississippi. No one could understand the lure of the Magnolia State. Mississippi my friends equated with low economic income, high illiteracy, the Bible Belt, Willie McGee, Bilbo and Rankin. But a recent Nobel Prize winner in literature was Faulkner of the Delta. Hodding Carter has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, and I commend to you his recent "Where Main Street Meets the River". There were personal reasons for our crossing the state border - to be nearer our family, to meet an interesting and challenging opportunity. Hattiesburg is 70 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, 100 miles from New Orleans. In our town is Mississippi Southern College. Its academic achievements are many; there are 2500 students, and believe it or not, their Football team beat Alabama and Georgia this year, returning them to the Sun Bowl game in El Paso on January lst. Life for us has never been dull. The congregational work reaches out in many directions. We live opposite to the Temple in a comfortable home - is there such a word as "rabbinage"? Try our guest room some time.

You know of course that Rabbi spent the summer of 1951 in Israel, flying both ways. Last year we both managed some weeks in Mexico, exploring that territory. Conventions and such took one or both of us to New York in the spring, and Colorado in the early summer. July and August last, we went to North Carolina, serving a small community as volunteers in return for cool weather and beautiful scenic surroundings. We had a taste of Junaluscka and other church Assembly grounds. An abundance of good theatre, especially "Unto These Hills" at Cherokee. Plenty of time for reading, reflection, and a fair amount of swimming and loafing.

The family is all well. Carol in Shreveport is the mother of three little boys. Last we heard, she had signed up as waterfront counselor for a summer camp. Bill, back from Korea and himself a proud daddy, is leaving the oil fields to study at the University of Texas. As for our foster sons, both are war veterans, one in newspaper work in Philadelphia, and the other back at college.