a bit of a long story to share with you today 🙂
back in February on our way to the beach to celebrate Valentine’s Day and Mr Magpie’s birthday…
we stopped in a small town and enjoyed a bit of window shopping…
outside a great little shop called Moon Vine we noticed a stack of letters tied with a pretty ribbon on a small round table…
so romantic looking from 1905 and 1906 with vintage postage and interesting handwriting…
without even reading a letter we could not resist the chance to give them a good home…
that is how we “met” Miss Kate Mehling of Baltimore, Maryland and Henry … her letter writing traveling salesman suitor …
we do not have a last name or address for Henry but we are assuming this is the millinery company he worked for (he used company stationery for some of his letters mailed from Florida…it is nice sturdy paper torn from a pad)…
we brought home about twenty letters written to Henry’s darling “little girl” as he sometimes liked to refer to his dear Kate…
what a shame we only get one side of the correspondence…
his letters are quite tame talking about his gentleman’s life of fishing and hunting expressing again and again how nice it was to receive letters from his dear Kate and how much nicer it would be when they were together again…
you can imagine it was a bit tricky trying to deliver letters to a traveling salesman who only stayed in one place for a few days and then moved on to the next location…
above he writes that “the millinery business is the very (insert his devil drawing)”...that August 1905 envelope from New York City had a bit of black sealing wax on it too…
he wrote that business was very good…
one startling thing to read in January 1906 was the news that Kate had Typhoid…
an interesting tidbit from here: “Due to improved environmental sanitation, typhoid fever has decreased dramatically in the United States since the early 1900’s. Before 1920, for example, typhoid fever occurred in 100 out of every 100,000 people. By 1920, it had decreased to 33.8 per 100,000 people, and, by 1950, to 1.7 for every 100,000. Currently, about 400 cases each year are reported in the United States, and the infected are mostly those who had recently traveled to endemic areas”...
a month later Henry wrote: “I enclose a few little violets as a token of “old times” gone by and to come,“…
only a bit of brown imprint remains on the patinaed pages with the pressed violets long gone…
when the wild violets burst into bloom in our garden it reminded me of Henry’s letters…
in another letter he tucked in a piece of Florida fern as a souvenir…
my goodness HOW long would this post have been if there WAS anything of real substance to report…
for now I am happy to be the keeper and guardian of these letters not quite sure what I will do with them exactly…
hope you enjoyed this…
joining the other bloggers over at Elizabeth and Bleubeard and wishing you a Happy T Day…
oxoxo
it felt like Christmas came early (or I was still celebrating my birthday!) getting to see him on his Winter tour too…
John Mayer also took time to thank the audience more than once for sticking with him over the years and making it possible for him to do what he loves…
Magpie's Nest ~*~ Patty Szymkowicz 