Margaret acquired two kittens and one day they disappeared. Adelle didn't want to tell her about what had happened to the kittens, but she overheard her mom telling her dad that the tom had killed them both. That was her first experience of the death…
During her many visits to Grandmother in Racine, Margaret would be sent to a store to get, say, a loaf of bread. Once she had to walk past a saloon to get to the store. She had never seen a saloon or a drunk person before, so she would get close to…
Margaret wasn't allowed to go to plays, movies, and dances. All the kids at her school went to dance lessons, but she wasn't allowed to, although she was the best dancer of her class. Her father was so strict
Margaret had her tonsils removed and a nurse that Grace Van Hough knew came to watch over her for 24 hours. She remembers the nurse commenting on her muscles from head to toes (Margaret had was in sports a lot and had developed pretty strong…
Following Kenneth's graduation and summer work he moved to Princeton for study. Margaret held an engagement luncheon while Kenneth was away. Margaret reads a letter Kenneth's mother had sent her welcoming her into the family. In his first year…
At age three Margaret had an ear infection and went through an operation safely. Grandfather Laurids learned about it and sent a note to greet the family. It was nicely written but not so comforting. Other letters from other relatives were warmer.
Margaret tells about a little essay she wrote in French in High School in Evanston. She had excellent French instructors there but lost her French when she went to Wheaton.
Margaret and her sisters grew up in a musical family, and they all had music lessons. Evangeline and Betty were talented musically, Margaret had no gift. Betty had a very brilliant teacher at Northwestern University, but lost it all when she came to…
Margaret was invited to share the room of the junior girls she had met in the late summer because one of them wasn't coming back to Wheaton. This was a tremendous piece of luck to have a junior's room.
Margaret started making plans for Christmas very early, as she had done since childhood. She planned and managed to buy a $60 typewriter for Kenneth and hid it in her trunk. She was afraid that Kenneth would figure out what she had gotten him.
When Margaret was seven or eight years old she became very sick. The family doctor could not figure out what the disease was, so there was very little that could be done to help her. Suddently she had a terrible convulsion and the sickness was all…
Margaret's scarlet fever a second time, one year after the first one, and this time it was worse. She was treated just in time, but she became completely deaf in her right ear. Her hearing in the left ear, though, was so acute throughout her…
Margaret always loved Christmas. One time A.D. couldn't be home for Christmas, so the family didn't buy a Christmas tree. Margaret found one that someone had thrown away by the road side. She dragged it home triumphantly, and Adelle realized how much…
Margaret learned very early not to lie or steal. She remembers the first time she lied, she quickly realized she was not good at it. She also recalls stealing a piece of gum and felt so bad about it that she decided that this wasn't for her.
Margaret intended to win a scholarship by her good grades. She worked hard in her History class and got 95 on each examination and at the end of the semester the professor gave her 70 because Margaret and her friend had teased him. It cost her the…
The Lincolnwood School was a very nice building, with excellent teachers, especially in music and arts. Seventh grade kids all participated in the Evanston Music Festival. Margaret remembers the great musician John McCormack who often sang drunk, and…
In 1913 the Mortensons bought a new house at 2400 Harrison St., just a couple of blocks from 2218 Central St. This was a comfortable, plain, square house, like so many throughout the Midwest in those days. The family lived there until 1923 when they…
Margaret's desire was to go to Vassar for college. Her parents decided that she should go to Wheaton, so they took her to visit there. To convince her, Margaret's parents bargained with her that she could go to the girls' summer camp again if she…
Margaret tells of the Landons' first Christmas in Thailand. It was Peggy's first Christmas, and presents came from the U.S. Even though Adelle and the girls had very little money, they always found ways of sending gifts. She tells of the customs and…
Margaret returns to Kenneth's first weeks in Washington and the report he presented, based on his knowledge of the terrain in Thailand. She says that when she and Kenneth were in the final years of their second tour in Siam that the Japanese were…
In 1941 Kenneth Landon kept an office in the Library of Congress, where he enlisted the help of Shio Sakanishi, a Tokyo-born Japanese expert working in the Division of Orientalia. Horace Poleman, who became one of Landon’s best friends, worked with…
In March of 1942 Kenneth delivered the Taft lectures at Cincinnati. That was his beginning as a professor of Oriental philosophy. The event was stimulated by the course in Chinese philosophy that he had presented at Earlham. The lectures were…
After the Thai-British negotiations in 1946, the Thai government wanted to give a gift to Kenneth. However, Kenneth had the reputation of not accepting gifts of any value. The government had a policy that fine statues of the Buddha could not be taken…