SentLetters

In my pursuit to get the massive user base of wikipedia to help me with finding out more information about the Drexler Coal Company, I have started to create links to the Drexler Coal Article.  The article does not exist currently, because apparently you have to have links coming in and prove that it is necessary to have in the site.  So, I have started my rebellion by creating this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Coal_Companies.  It links to the Drexler Coal Company.  Eventually I will go in and recreate the article and attempt to get it to stay on wikipedia.

It would be nice to at least have the possibility that someone who knows about the company could add information.  I would then be able to figure out more about the Drexler family, which is what I am after in the long run anyways.

If I haven’t said it yet, I appreciate you who read this blog.  Any one who is interested in having a letter of their own featured on the site, please contact me by commenting on this post.  I would be happy to post scans and descriptions, or full text transcriptions (with pictures of course!) of your old letters.

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“I was half hoping you would say to hell with soldiers, crowds, adn governmental requests and thus give me an excuse for coming (not a good one I grant you that - but an excuse nonetheless”

“particularly after seeing that movie short (which really prompted my last letter) and this week’s Life”

Norma talks about the oil shortage and how they have to keep their home extremely cold, sometimes rooms get as low as 20 degrees. Man that is frigid!

She talks about a movie short, and this month’s issue of Life as if they are talking about something very important. Ideas?

I really like the “For Victory Buy War Bonds” stamps at the bottom of every page. Does anyone know what the “Office of Price Administration” is?

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Sometimes this project is frustrating and exciting, but especially frustrating right now as I am posting these letters from an unknown time. I am posting them out of order from the rest of the letters. So I am getting a sneak peak of what is to come, but it makes absolutely no sense to me yet. Its like someone continuing a conversation from the middle that they started with someone else 70 years ago! I wish I knew more about what is going on here. Only time will help me find out.This project creates little historical mysteries for me, that inevitable leave me scouring the internet for clues. As I get into the meat of this collection of letters, I hope to find more clues as to the time in which these letters belong, so I can get more information about what they are talking about in the letters!

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This audio player will play a radio broadcast from WNYC. They are “talking about stumbling upon the past in unlikely places”.

They start out on top of a landfill in New York, discussing the history that is contained inside.Then they talk about a place in Egypt, where two Oxford Archaeologists in the late 1800’s found some sand dunes that looked irregular compared to the other ones in the area. They found the “mother load … of rubbish heaps”, that are as old as 10 centuries old. They found thousands of pieces of papers in the trash heaps. The most amazing part of this, is that historians are still piecing the papers back together. In one century, they have pieced together 1% of the pieces.The audio is from WYNC Detective Stories.

Side Note: Wouldn’t it be amazing if I had letters like that to post on this site!!

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“… something awfully embarrassing happened on the train. Just as I stepped on, both garters on my right leg unsnapped and I clutched my knee with one hand. People must have thought i was hunched back or I had to ‘do my duty’ because i was hobbling down the aisle in a very peculiar manner.”

I find it a little humorous that she was playing “Mahj” (Mahjong) until 2:00 and lost the significant amount of13 cents. That amount now would probably be equivalent to dollars. At first it seems silly because one usually compares it to the current rate of exchange without considering that this letter is somewhere in the range of 60-80 years old.

I really liked this commentary on parents (Don’t we all feel this way at some point?):

“No reasonable, logical, simple explanation on my part will convice them that they are wrong, pig-headed, stubborn, and generally dumb…”

Then in a moment of understanding and seeming forgiveness, she finishes the letter with:

” - however I feel that time will smooth it over.”

I know that it is hard to see in the scan, but there are two lip drawings on the page after Alice signs the letter. One is for Norma, and the other for Ella. This leads me to believe that Norma and Ella are sisters, or at the very least good friends.

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From Wikipedia:

“… the Deshler-Wallick Hotel, which was considered at the time to be one of the world’s largest hotels. (The hotel was later the Deshler Hilton and then later still demolished and replaced with a parking lot which was replaced in turn by One Columbus Center).”

The letter claims that the Deshler-Wallik Hotel had 1000 rooms and 1000 baths, and was managed by Biltmore Hotel our of Providence Rhode Island

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