Letter1

The Good Old Days

Letters from my Grandmother

November 4, 1999

"I showed your Dad the enclosed clipping about Orson Welles' radio program. He knows you've read of it but thought you would like to hear of us listening to it. We had moved from Indiana. Was closer to Metamora on Road 52, between Brookville and Metamora, to Union City, Michigan. This was late February, 1938. We also moved our things along with our Sears floor model battery radio. Used battery like a car you would have to recharge it ever so often. We had also got alladin lamps to replace kerosene ones with wicks. Made light more like electric. We moved then in fall of 1940 to farm where your Dad was born and there we had electric and running water but no bathroom.

But getting back to the Halloween program they told at beginning of the show that it was from made up novel, but lots of people didn't see the starting of it and people in New Jersey and New York got scared and was walking off into the hills in droves. It really set up a commotion. We were surprised when we heard cause we had seen it from the start. Guess they put it on at that time for Halloween..."

This is from one of a series of letters my grandmother wrote about her life in Indiana in Michigan.

Indiana night sky time lapse exposure

Information on Metamore, Indiana can be found at:

For more on Orson Welles’ work with the Mercury Theatre,

including the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, visit

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