Feb 5, 1939
Dick found some poison stickers from his dad’s drug store and pasted them on this letter. He tells us that he gets a dime if he gets all his spelling words right, and that he likes to listen to Charlie McCarthy (Edgar Bergen’s famous ventriloquist dummy partner) on the radio. I have never figured out why anyone would want to listen to a ventriloquist on the radio.
Feb 7, 1939
In this letter Dick tells about going to see a Shirley Temple movie (born the same year that Dick was, she was a movie star as a child). He also informs us that most of his letters are written from the Votaw Pharmacy, and that his dad is busy filling prescriptions. Also, he found a way to use a typewriter to make a prescription symbol (℞).
Feb 7, 1939 back
Mildred uses the back of Dick’s letter to tell Tirzah about her visits to the dentist. Sounds like dental work is much easier for us now than it was in those days! I know that she had a lot of trouble with her teeth. (Too much candy? See the May 14 letter.)
Feb 13, 1939
Dick shares his plan for sending valentines to girls – only to the girls he likes best! We learn that “neighborhood” and “lemonade” are tough spelling words – but he got them right! – and that his dad fills 35-40 prescriptions per day without getting tired.
Feb 13, 1939 back
On the back of Dick’s letter, just a quick note from Mildred telling Tirzah that she did her “Quaker lady stuff” today. You can see her in her Quaker lady costume on this page.
Feb 21, 1939 p. 1
Dick tells us on the first page of this letter about the difficulties he faced in trying to use his grandfather’s (Lewis?) old manual typewriter. He recommends a bath of gasoline as a cleanser. He also tells us more about his dad’s work as a pharmacist.
Feb 21, 1939 p. 2
On page 2 of this “especially long” letter Dick tells about trying out carbon paper for the first time, and about showing his progress in school to his mother. She said he was “getting along bum in arithmetic,” an expression I hadn’t heard before.
May 14, 1939
In this letter Dick describes himself as his mother’s chief “worry.” Her love for candy, which we grandchildren all knew about, was strong even back when Dick was a boy.
May 14, 1939 back
Mildred uses the back of Dick’s letter to make plans with her sister Tirzah. She always called Tirzah “Tix”. We grandchildren learned this name when we were handing out presents from the Christmas tree and we had to ask who got the presents addressed to Tix.
Nov 12, 1940
In this letter Dick tells how his mother talks a “flatfoot” (policeman on a walking beat) out of ticketing her for parking illegally. We learn about the limits of child’s library card and that Mildred was working at Ayres (department store in Indianapolis, like Bullock’s in California).
Jan 14, 1941
Dick is nearly 13 at the time of this letter, and it’s easy to see that his writing has improved. We learn from this letter that he is learning the printing trade, and I am sure that it helped his writing.
Jan 14, 1941 back
Mildred’s note on the back of Dick’s letter is just keeping Frank & Tirzah updated on the family’s health and sports activities, and planning for the weekend.
Jan 22, 1941
In this letter Dick tells Frank & Tirzah about shows he has seen and is going to see, and about his grades. His typewriter has no + (plus sign) key, so he improvises using a minus sign and a slash.
Jan 7, 1942 p. 1
In this last letter that we have from this period in Dick’s life we see that he now has his personalized stationery – perhaps he printed it himself? We read about his plan for getting to the farm that weekend, and about a tough test in English class.
Jan 7, 1942 p. 2
On the back side we hear about Mildred’s chances of being elected to a position in the club, and that Howard (Dick’s uncle) and his wife are ok.
The family archives contain quite a few typed letters from Harold and Dick Votaw. They were both excellent letter-writers.
On this page we see Dick’s early attempts at typing letters, spanning the years when he was 10-13 years old. Many of the letters were typed at his dad’s drug store, the Votaw Pharmacy.
All of the letters on this page were written to Tirzah and Frank Jessup, whom Dick addressed as “Aunt and Uncle.” (Tirzah was Mildred’s sister.) They lived on a farm outside of Plainfield, the city where Dick’s parents lived when he was born. But by the time of these letters Harold and Mildred Votaw had moved to Indianapolis, and some of these letters are written from Dick’s home there.
Dick would often spend weekends with Tirzah and Frank out on the farm. He loved being out there, and they loved having him, since they had no children of their own. He regarded them as a second set of parents (and that was a good thing!). So it was natural for him to keep in touch with them during the week.
The letters contain little or nothing of consequence, but they provide interesting insights into life in the Midwest, just before World War II, from the viewpoint of a junior high school boy.
These letters were typed on a manual typewriter – something few readers of this page will have had any experience with. These things were not easy to use. (I think I used one in high school and part of college.) You really had to hit the keys hard to get the letters to be visible, especially if the typewriter ribbon was old. Of course there was no way to erase errors – you just had to strike through them. Some of the keys we take for granted, like the number 1, the plus sign, the exclamation point – were typically missing from manual typewriters. The typist had to figure out ways to get around these omissions. It was standard practice, for example, to use a lower-case ‘L’ for the number 1. I remember it took me a while to quit doing that when keyboards finally began including a 1 on them.
Click on any letter to enlarge it for reading. While zoomed in, you can use the arrow keys (left or right) to page through the letters.
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