It is a comfort, though, to think how strong a bond those letters may become. Letters have kept home ties intact and friendships alive over very long periods of time. 

Something of a record in correspondence is held by one resident of Eau Claire, a record of five letters every week exchanged with his father over a period, not of a year or two or even five, but for thirty years. Kurt H. Stubenvoll, chemist with the U.S. Rubber Company here, and his father, Dr. Carl E. Stubenvoll of Shawano, started that correspondence when Kurt first went away from home to attend Carroll College. They wrote to each other daily, except on weekends— the time when most of us catch up on our letter writing.

How could a correspondence like that be kept up, we asked this most faithful letter writer. "Habit," he told us. Well, perhaps that had something to do with it. The habit of writing each day, as the habit of keeping a diary, can grow on one. But perhaps another explanation was the fact that he and his father had always been good companions, as he explained, "more like brothers than like father and son. We like to do things together, go fishing, hunting, play poker. We seemed to like so many of the same things."

But what can you write about? That seems to puzzle many who would like to write often to their sons. There isn't enough news, here at home, and the boy who is away can't write of many things he is doing.

The secret of the Stubenvoll correspondence seems to be that father and son just had a good visit through their letters. They told what they thought of things, related amusing little incidents, sent just a card or a word of greeting if they were busy and couldn't take much time to write. They clipped interesting or amusing items from papers; cartoons they had laughed at. Their letter-writing never became a burden because it was carried on in this easy, casual style. Perhaps the fact that it was a daily affair made the letters easier to write. There was no long period of time or long list of happenings to cover.

There were other members of both families. Kurt has a brother and two sisters. His mother is living, but he and Dad were the champion letter writers.

Thirty years is a long time.  How many things the Stubenvolls, father and son, must have touched upon in that correspondence.  Letters were not kept, however, Kurt says. 

The sad note creeps in now. The correspondence has become one-sided during the past two months since Dr. Stubenvoll suffered  an attack of illness which has made it difficult to write. Let's hope that he recovers to carry on the series for another decade at least!

And as for the boys of today and their Dads, let's hope that the correspondence which means so much today may keep them together, so that when they come home, their friendship with Dad will be even firmer than when they went away.

C. E. Buthrie, secretary of the YMCA, sent us the following poem, saying that it has been his hobby to write a Mother's Day poem each year, but this is his first attempt at one for father.

He says that fathers "have been sadly neglected and I thought I would remedy the matter as far as my own dad is concerned."