It is the start of 1941, and Marguerite writes to Maude, describing her shock at the news of the bombing of England, and ending her letter with a request from her friend for advice on how to write a letter to her former boyfriend in Costa Rica. Maude reports that the arial bombing in England is mercifully in hiatus. She describes the destruction in Liverpool, but also looks hopefully to the future.

Marguerite writes on her 16th birthday, April 26 1940, that her parents plan to send her back to the United States for her education. Maude describes rationing in England, convoys of merchant ships like the one Jackie sails on, an encounter with Will Hall, and the miracle of Dunkirk. France is about to fall.

Maude writes again from Rose Cottage in Wales, and of her experiences of being an evacuee and living and working on the farm there. Marguerite’s world, in comparison, seems carefree. We hear from her via her diary, where she pours out her heart about friends and boys. The seasons are changing in Costa Rica; she feels homesick for Hanover and re-reads old letters from her father.

December 1938.  This is Marguerite’s second letter to Maude, where she tells of going to the rim of a volcano’s crater, and of having moved from the town of Cartago to the family’s new home in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, where she will soon start school. 

Fall 1938. In Marguerite’s first letter to Maude, she describes arriving in Panama and then Costa Rica, travelling by train to the town of Cartago. Maude replies with a letter of settling into her new home in Liverpool, England.