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Thief River Falls, Mn. Jan. 5, 1976 Dear Friends,

      Didn't wish to spoil your Christmas season and consequently held off sending this devastating news.  If it hadn't been for my daughter and husband (and 4 kiddies) who took in this bruised and battered widow I don't know how I'd have survived all this.   Ben and I had a special kind of relationship.   When the surgeon's knife and cancer rendered  him impotent a few  months after our marriage we were really in low spirits.   The darling guy offered me my freedom since he couldn't truly be a husband!  But how underlined:  could I leave him, when he was already so shattered!
      I loved him until his last breath - and will never stop!   - was at the hospital those final 9 days when the cancer destroyed that marvelous brain and left him a babbling wreck.   Stood by his bed 12 hours while he was in his agony - how he fought to live!  Not until I hit on the idea of assuring him that I would be by his