As most everyone who reads this blog knows I am a Purveyor of Junque. I auction quite regularly . Believe it or not I really dont have much in the way of possessions. Seeing what people leave behind and what it is ultimately worth has cured me of the Possession Mania.I will admit I have a deep appreciation of the smashed penny and old letters. Both are not very space consuming and not really important to the general public. They are mystery's to me. Relics that give great insight to those who possessed them.
People fascinate me. Not your ordinary run of the mill people but people who are somehow outside of the box. I have always been slightly outside of the box. I don't think I really appreciated the outside of the box until my 30th birthday.
History was never my strength in school. I never appreciated it. I love what I do because I am learning History through these possessions . Through the letters.
Recently I opened an Etsy store. 9 sales so far WOOHOO!!! I decided that i would look through my paper stash for items to sell to scrapbookers/ crafters. I found a prized possession I acquired in a box of goo some years ago. It is a letter I found in a box that contained an empty vodka bottle. This isn't any letter though. It is a letter written by a young girl to her Mother in 1928. It chronicles her trek through St George Utah in 1928. Remember cars were different then so were young ladies or were they?
Dear Mother,
July 17,1928
We are leaving St. George this morning at 6:30. We have stopped just out of St George to get the radiator cap repaired so water wont squirt in our face every time it takes a notion to. After we get to our destination I will write you a big long letter going more into detail but it seems as if I cant do very much writing going along the road.
July 18, 1928
We have had a couple of punctures , one right after we left Daggett and another one yesterday just around the corner from Scipios ( pronounce it if you can). Mildred and I are getting to be experts at changing tires and finding our way around.
We wore our knickers + jackets yesterday and both of us got sunburned from head to heels. by the way neither one of us had any waist or anything to wear under our jackets. Mildred wore her pajama jacket under hers and I pinned a handkerchief (one of those that Edith Carley gave me) under the front of mine with a couple of hair pins I found in the middle of our cabin floor in St George. How in the world those hairpins got there i don't know. We swept the floor twice that night and the next morning those two hairpins were laying side by side right in the middle of the floor.
After we fled from that flea-infested room at Salt lake City We came on into Ogden. Look on a map and see how far it is from St George to Ogden we made it in one day and stopped at an all night service station and slept the rest of the night sitting up in the car. Sure slept good too. We woke up at 4:30 and are now sitting in front of the Ogden PO office writing letters. After we finish these letters we are writing in our diaries.
When we got into St George we were a little bit tired and a man and woman staying in the cabin next to ours offered us a stimulant Whiskey!!! Said they had a pint and that they would be glad to let us have some if we wanted it. Later that evening we were talking to them and the man was about "half shot" then.
I wish you could have been with us when we came thru Arizona. We saw the most beautiful mountains and clefts. Most of them were straight up and down and a bright red color. They looked just like pictures you see of cliff dwellings . We came over one Mountain range that struck me right between the eyes and has stayed there ever since. The mountain was black and had gigantic rocks as black as coal on it. and the mountain was black too. The next thing we knew we dropped onto another mountain that was as red as blood with giant rocks of the same color.
At the gas station where we stayed last night there were two boys in a car talking to the one in the gas station when we went to get a drink. They asked us if we wanted something to wake us up. We said we were already awake enough. They were about half-drunk . A little later they showed us some whiskey and asked if we wanted a drink. We politely informed them that we did not care for any and that we did not drink. then turned on our heels walked over to the car and drove off.
Mildred is jumping around scratching her bites while she is trying to write some letters. People here in Utah are certainly shocked at us in our knicker suits and bare legs. Its to d.... hot to wear much of anything here. It is nice and cool in the morning and nice and cool in the evening but pretty HOT in the daytime.
Well I'm going to mail this and get some news to you. And also I gotta have some breakfast
Love
Evy Lou
