Margaret wrote to her mother that she and Kenneth were going to the Wrights for Thanksgiving. She talks about the turkey they were going to eat. In those days turkey was still a luxury meat that you never had more than once or twice a year.
Margaret recalls visiting (with Kenneth) the house in which she was born and raised, at 8412 Highway E, Somers, Wisconsin. The house was altered and enlarged, but the room she was born in was still there. They had tea with Mrs. Tabbert, the wife of…
Kenneth and Margaret remember trying to get Adelle to visit. Margaret reads from her letters to her mother and realizes that in each one she asks how soon Mother was going to come.
Kenneth tells about how often Margaret would suggest that they just be friends. He remembers three such occasions, but Kenneth wouldn't settle for this--"Well, you can't do that with me."
Kenneth and Margaret went to talk with missionaries from Siam to prepare for their assignment. With Kenneth, Jr. they discuss missionary training and new ideas in preparing missionaries
Margaret returns to the name of Baxter, looking up the Baxters in a biographical dictionary. James Phinney Baxter III. She reads about his work as president and lecturer at several colleges. When the OCI became the OSS, he became Deputy Director of…
Kenneth tells of his serving on the admissions committee of the Cosmos Club. Customarily, one would only serve for three years. However, after replacing a member who resigned, and finishing that members two years on the committee, he was able to stay…
Margaret and Kenneth explain who Prince Damrong was. He was a very powerful and highly respected person, not only by the Thai but also by all the foreigners living in Bangkok. He was the premier prince. They tell of the coup d'etat that led the…
Kip notes from Kenneth's letters that he was being paid $20 a day. He started out at $15 a day, then moved up to $20. Kenneth was negotiating for more. Ernest Griffith was a man of wealth, a Quaker business type who was determined to get everything…
Marshall Sarit of Thailand came to dinner with the Landons in 1958. When Kenneth and Sarit were on the porch, Sarit noted the wild animals which lived in the same area as the Landons. Noting they weren't afraid of him, he concluded Kenneth had the…
Kenneth left the OCI for the BEW in part because the Harvard folks couldn't get along with him about the Chinese he spoke. Margaret points out that Kenneth spoke the Swatow dialect, Taichu, that was commonly spoken among the diaspora of Chinese in…
Kenneth had one further temptation to leave government when, in 1947, Chicago University invited him to deliver the Haskell lectures in comparative religion. These were the most prestigious lectures in religion in the United States. This, however,…
During that initial three weeks, Kenneth had two offices, one in the Triangle Building, and one in the Library of Congress, a research office, with full facilities and the availability of the stacks. That was when he discovered all of the Thai…
Kenneth and Margaret tell about Kenneth's earliest exchanges with the government about Southeast Asia. They talked about when the Japanese could attack Thailand, why the Japanese were in Indochina and how far, if they attack Thailand, they could…
While Kenneth was traveling in Bangkok in 1960, Prime Minister Sarit requested Kenneth for breakfast. Through the course of the breakfast, Sarit talked quite highly of Kenneth. As it turns out, the entire thing was televised, and many invitations…
Kenneth tells of the background to his appointment at the State Department. There had been a number of inquiries before the call from Washington. Kenneth wasn't interested in most of them. He tells how Mortimer Graves, secretary of the Council of…
Kenneth and Margaret make final remarks on the taping. They thank Kip for doing the recordings. Kenneth says "thank you" in Thai, and states that they have great appreciation for the records.
After their wedding Kenneth and Margaret spent the next day in Chicago. They had lunch at the LaSalle Hotel where they were staying, and an early supper near the dock, where they were to board the boat that was going to take them across Lake…
Kenneth and Margaret didn't see each other from the fall of 1924 to the summer of 1926, when they got married. Kenneth wanted to get married a year earlier, and he believed he could support her. They frequently wrote letters to each other during…
Kenneth tells of the time he and Margaret were driving home at night, and they almost had a head-on collision with a huge car coming at a very high speed. Kenneth managed to instantly get their small car out of the road. The two of them couldn't…
Kenneth accidentally met Mr. Lindsay Hadley on campus and invited him over for dinner without knowing who he was. They had a good conversation (though a bit discouraging as to the Landons missionary plans) at the dinner table. It turned out that…
Kenneth and Margaret arrived in Princeton and drove through the city, proudly admiring its beautiful streets, with their truck full of baggage. Kenneth couldn't believe how much stuff Margaret owned.
In February Kenneth wrote that he and Margaret had been officially appointed to Siam. The plan was for them to depart in August, about a month before Margaret gave birth to their first child. Margaret reads a list of the items they were advised to…