- Date: Mailed Christmas Eve, 24 December 1937
- Written at: On Hotel Gibson (Cincinnati) paper; mailed from Washington, D.C.
- Stationery: Hotel Gibson, Cincinnati
- From: Joseph “Joe” Sharmer
- To: Miss Ruby E. Wilson, Planada, Calif.
- Condition: Complete — a one-page note and its envelope
Each page of the original is shown beside its transcription. Click a page to enlarge it.
THE NOTE
Honey—
They furnish two of these and I only need one so you are my pal and are entitled to the other even tho you are not here.
I love you
Joe
ENVELOPE
Via Air Mail
Miss Ruby E. Wilson
Planada, Calif
Merced, County
Postmarked Washington, D.C., 10 P.M., December 24, 1937, with two purple 3-cent Washington stamps.
Notes & context
Earlier that day. On Christmas Eve afternoon Joe also wrote Ruby a two-page letter, before going “down town to see the Pres light the Xmas tree” (To See the Pres Light the Xmas Tree). It is possible that letter, rather than this note, travelled in this envelope.
Christmas Eve, 1937. Joe spent Christmas with his sister Dodie’s family in Washington. A week earlier he had written from Pittsburgh: “We will have a nice time at Xmas all I need is my Baby who will be in Planada and here Ill be 3000 miles away” (Snow, Sleet, Smoke and Coal Dust).
“Two of these.” The note is written on Hotel Gibson paper from Cincinnati, earlier on the trip, but the envelope was mailed from Washington on Christmas Eve. Whatever the hotel “furnished” in pairs, he was sending Ruby the second one, probably as a small Christmas keepsake tucked in with the note. What it was has not survived.
No street address. Unlike his hotel envelopes, this one goes simply to “Planada, Calif.” It hardly needed one: Ruby was Planada’s postmaster (The Postmaster of Planada).
The note and envelope were found together. Because the note is on Cincinnati stationery, it is possible they were paired later, but nothing suggests otherwise.
