Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
any fanfic? ;)
  

    
robinsline, I do have a few photos of Leon and Elly which their
daughter kindly provided to me! Here you can see the Rosenbergs on a
family vacation in 1951: http://flickr.com/gp/fsquared/M15G6P 

All the photos I have are from the '50s, well after the timeframe of
the letters. I know there are earlier photos, as Leon refers to photos
in several of his letters, so I'm just hoping they're stored in a box
somewhere and that one of his kids will turn them up eventually.

loris, I've been nibbling away at the edges for a while, but there's
so much to research that I can't say I've dug in.

76!!!
  

    
<snerk> Fanfic!
  

    
Today's letter: Leon gets his political rant on!

http://a-certain-party-i-love.tumblr.com/post/75806753230/it-is-not-enough-to-
read-such-books
  

    

Today's post mentions a candy manufacturers' made up holiday, The Sweetest
Day.

<http://a-certain-party-i-love.tumblr.com/post/76231633505/sweetest-day>

That would handily line up with my anniversary, if we could revive it.

MORE SUGAR. FEWER GREETING CARDS.
  

    
Or if you could move to Ohio. 
  

    
I got in so much trouble with my Ohio native wife the first time I
"forgot" about sweetest day.  Since it was the first time I heard of
it, I didn't feel particularly bad, but there were still some hard
feelings.

The next year, when I didn't have the excuse of "I've never heard of
this before" was worse.
  

    
Man, I see it as an opportunity.  Come in the door with a silly hat and 
some hazelnut truffles and I do not have to wait up all night to get 
lucky.
  

    
Apparently it isn't "the sweetest day," it's just "sweetest day." For
your sweetest. Or something.

Marcus, I am very excited that you've confirmed people in Ohio still
observe it!
  

    
I'm fascinated by the origins of all these "made up" holidays.  My
father lives in the tiny town that is the home of Mother's day.  It's a
big deal there, there is a shrine dedicated to Anna Jarvis, who's idea
it was.

I say "made up" in quotes because, as I pointed out to a roommate who
complained that Kwanza is a made up holiday, all holidays are made up.
With possibly the exception of solstice celebrations.

But sweetest day is a particularly blatant one.  The proclamation from
the Cleveland plain dealer on the occasion of the first one, visible
at the wikipedia article,  makes me laugh at the dis-ingenuousness of
12 candy makers announcing a holiday like this.  It seems obvious this
day is to sell more candy.  But on the other hand, the proclamation
never mentions candy. And if you were a group of 12 candy makers who
just happened to want to promote a day to remind people they are
valued, of course you are going to promote that using the resources at
hand, free candy for orphans and newsboys!

"You are the very first girl to receive a Sweetest Day token from me
and, if you continue to be as good to me as you always have, you will
undoubtedly be the last as well"

Cute!
  

    
chow.ind 486. Just sayin'.
  

    
yup, just 12 buds, just thinking about human value, just suggesting a 
holiday. wait, you want to buy some candy? ok.
  

    
A little advance notice that on the 20th I'll be posting the results
so far of my investigation into the question of how two 20-something
women (Elly and her sister Ruth) came to be sharing an apartment with
at least one of their three brothers and no parents in sight.
  

    
A double entendre for Valentine's Day, because I love you all:

http://a-certain-party-i-love.tumblr.com/post/76537838589/yes-they-had-dirty-j
okes-in-1940
  

    
Ha!
  

    
hahahaha. That is one they would tell in like fifth GRADE now. So sweet.
  

    
Racy!
  

    
Was Leon a door-to-door canvasser for the 1940s census?  If so you
might be able to find additional specimens of his handwriting, and
clues as to his daily rounds, on the actual census pages he filled out
while going around, now that those have all been released to the
public.

But that assumes you have any way from the letters or other material
of finding out which streets were part of his route.
  

    
No, he worked at the US Census Bureau office in DC, tabulating the
results. I know this because in a later letter he describes exactly
what his job involved.
  

    
Oh, well.  It was just a thought.
  

    


Aaaand, having made it past Valentines Day, which means about a week more
than our usual two-week discussion schedule, I'd like to thank Fawn so much
for participating in this topic here. It's been great to see this project
getting going, and of course readers can still keep up with the blog at:

<http://a-certain-party-i-love.tumblr.com/>

Thank you, Fawn, for giving us your time, both in this topic, and as a long-
time host on The Well.
  

    
Thank you for giving me a chance to talk about this! I'll keep posting
here now and then if people want me to. And of course, the blog
updates on Mondays and Thursdays.
  

    
I'm quite glad I dropped by, and will be checking the blog hopefully
every couple of days, just in case something extra pops up early.  
  

    
I'm still going to comment here when I see something that amuses me or
otherwise provokes me to comment.

heh heh "...every page of his ponderous tome contains words you and I
probably never heard of before and don’t want to again."
  

    
Thanks, Fawn!