Don Whitney - In His Own Words

Notes from Don's Dad (Bumpy) when he was on the Road as a Salesman for Kemps Nuts

"Since my Father was a traveling salesman, he was away from home a good part of most weeks. Typically, he would leave on a Monday morning, and return on Friday evening. Sometimes he wouldn't return until Saturday morning. This was the routine four weeks out of six. On one of the remaining two weeks we would be gone only a couple of nights, and on the sixth week he would be home every night. This left Mother alone with a small child, and it was up to her to run the house. This meant shoveling coal into the furnace, carrying the ashes up the narrow cellar stairway for disposal, emptying the water which drained from the ice chest, arranging for house repairs, and a whole myriad of household chores. Most of the time, Dad just wasn't home to take care of those details. But my parents were very close. Promptly at 7:00 PM, every night, the telephone would ring and it would be my Father checking in at the end of the day, When I was quite young, he would write me letters on hotel stationery, substituting drawings for many of the words. He was clever, and these letters became a real keepsake. "

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Updated on Jul 12, 1999

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