Full Text of the Excerpt

Katherine says that Everett never put any restrictions on her that she could do anything she wanted to do so far as fixing up the house or village or anything. And he never adhered to a budget and told her that she couldn't do anything, so if she wanted to get a new rug for the house or new draperies for the windows she always felt she had the freedom to do that. She claims she never abused the privilege and I guess she didn't really. She never certainly spent beyond Everett's ability to pay for it. He was very generous with her and their relationship was extremely close. I have never heard them have a sharp word with each other at all despite the many difficult times they came through. They were always working together rather than apart. They seemed to carry the same opinions about how problems should be approached and solved. I never heard a cross word between them. I knew them from 1949 until Everett died in 1974. I never heard either one of them have anything but very positive approaches to their lives or any of them around them. If other people weren't doing the things they ought to do why Everett and Katherine's comments would not be critical of what the other people were doing bad, but only how they could help them do things right. Quite different from my own attitude. I tend to be critical of people first and then eventually I can be talked into trying to see the other side of things, but now Katherine and Everett, their attitude was one of trying to solve problems rather than be critical.