- Date: Wednesday evening, 19 January 1938 (finished about 3 a.m.)
- Written at: New York, New York
- Stationery: Hotel Taft, 7th Ave. at 50th St., New York (Room 1446)
- From: Joseph “Joe” Sharmer
- To: Miss Ruby E. Wilson, 745 Broadway, Planada, California
- Condition: Pages 1, 2 and 5 and envelope; pages 3 and 4 missing. Found with it: the torn last page of another letter
Each page of the original is shown beside its transcription. Click a page to enlarge it.
PAGE 1
Wed Eve.
My Lover:—
I cant go to sleep because I am thinking of you and how much I need you Dear. God things are tough here and since F D R made his talk he has knocked the socks out of business. I worked like H— today and didnt get anywhere. They just wont buy — If you were only here I would have something to live & work for but you being 3000 miles away & me not knowing anyone except this G D broker who is another B. J. & calling on all the Freedmans, Rosenbergs, Dickmans, Diners [?], Mainzers [?], Seemans [?] and God knows what I am almost at the end of my rope. I want to come home. I wrote J S B tonight that if he thot he could do any better to come on here and I would back away. I am very lonesome for you Ruby Dear and each day as I told you before I love
PAGE 2
you more & more. I have read your letters a hundred times over & over and Dear you cant imagine what they do for me. I am tired of going to shows without you because you know how I cry & being alone & homesick makes it 10 times as bad — All I can think of is you — How we went to Merced, either to the show or for dinner and how we shopped together & Thanksgiving & our rides to Le Grand and our Sunday morning breakfast & your sun baths in the car, the beautiful autumn leaves, buying the walnuts, our ride in the hills our first night of swimming and dinner at Aunt Vi’s my first kiss and Honey it was the sweetest I ever had, the wonderful times in your room, how I hated to go home. the time you went to sleep. your beautiful face. & eyes & teeth, the time I met you in Fresno, how glad I was
PAGES 3 AND 4 ARE MISSING
Page 2 breaks off in the middle of Joe’s long list of memories of their autumn together — “the time I met you in Fresno, how glad I was” — and page 5 begins in the middle of a sentence about Aunt Larry. Somewhere in the two lost pages the letter turned from Ruby to Aunt Larry, at whose house in San Francisco (3355 Octavia Street) Joe gave his return address. What happened when someone “let Larry in the house” is not known. Joe’s numbering at the top of the pages (“2”, “5”) shows that only these two are lost.
PAGE 5
let Larry in the house. & God Honey I needed her — You know Dear she is the only mother I have ever known and how I admire you when we use to come home at night and a light was burning in your mothers window and you would say “Hi Mama” Enough of this I had better go to bed even tho I have been in my P J’s for about 5 hours — Its now 3 — o’clock here so Goodnite my beautiful and pleasant dreams — I love you Dear with all my heart & soul — Please excuse the letter tonight but I love you so much I cant help telling you all — Ill write again tomorrow
You are the sweetest and dearest girl in all the whole world — My love for you will go on forever — Good Nite my Sweetheart Love & Kisses
As Ever
Joe
ENVELOPE (POSTMARKED 20 JAN 1938)
Air Mail
Miss Ruby E. Wilson
745 Broadway
Planada, California
Postmarked New York, N.Y., Station G, 12:30 p.m., 20 January 1938. “1446,” Joe’s room number, is written under the hotel’s name, and “M.L.” in pencil beneath the picture of the hotel.
FOUND WITH THIS LETTER: A TORN LAST PAGE
[The top of the page is torn away; a few words of the first line are lost.]
… all my Love & Kisses to the sweetest little girl in all the world — That is you Dear — Please write to me — as I am lonesome for you Lover — Will write again tonight
As Ever & all my Love
Joe
Notes & context
The date. Joe headed it only “Wed Eve.” and was still writing at 3 in the morning. The envelope was postmarked at 12:30 the next afternoon, Thursday 20 January, so he began it on Wednesday, 19 January 1938 — the day after “Ask Me” and Top Hats and Orchids.
“The only mother I have ever known.” Joe’s father died in June 1898, when Joe was seven months old, and his mother Katie in April 1907, when he was nine (Uncle Joe and Katie). Aunt Larry in San Francisco was the mother he grew up knowing, which is why the memory of Ruby calling “Hi Mama” to the light in her mother’s window moved him so. Years later two of Joe and Ruby’s sons went to visit her (A Visit to Aunt Larry).
“Since F D R made his talk.” The country was deep in the recession of 1937–38. Joe probably means President Roosevelt’s annual message to Congress of 3 January 1938, which criticised business practices and did nothing to cheer buyers. The surnames he lists are presumably the buyers and wholesalers he was calling on in New York.
A bad day. Only a day earlier he was “full of pep.” Now he is “almost at the end of my rope” and has written to J.S.B. offering to step aside if J.S.B. thought he could do better in New York himself. Who “another B. J.” was is not known.
Their autumn of 1937. Page 2 is a list of the times Joe and Ruby had shared before he left on the trip in early December: shows and dinners in Merced, shopping, Thanksgiving, drives to Le Grand (a few miles from Planada), Sunday breakfasts, autumn leaves, buying walnuts, a drive in the hills, their first night of swimming and dinner at Aunt Vi’s — “my first kiss” — and meeting her in Fresno. Aunt Vi also appears in A Dead Ringer for Mama; who she was is not yet known.
“M.L.” on the envelope. They stand for “My Lover,” as Joe himself explained in a postscript from Pittsburgh (The M.L. Is “My Lover”).
The torn page. This half-sheet of Taft stationery was found with the letter but is not part of it: page 5 already ends with Joe’s signature and “Ill write again tomorrow,” while this page has its own closing and signature and says “Will write again tonight,” so it was written during the day. It is the last page of another January letter from the Taft whose earlier pages have not been found. It is kept here, where it was found.
Uncertain readings: “Diners,” “Mainzers” and “Seemans” are how the names appear on the page. “H—” and “G D” are as Joe wrote them.
