Here is some distinctive stationery used by a passenger who rode the Olympian Hiawatha in 1949. While the stationery itself is quite beautiful, the letter written on it makes clear that the writer was not, at the time, a passenger on the train.
Click image to download a 2.5-MB PDF of this letter.
The envelope was postmarked August 26, 1949 in Greenough, Montana (about 30 miles northeast of Missoula) and addressed to a Miss Martha Blankarn of Rumson, New Jersey. The letter itself (which must be read on page 1, then 4, then 2) tells a sad tale of a young woman who had been exiled by her family in the wilds of Montana to keep her away from a boyfriend who they “are not overwhelmingly thrilled with” in the hope that she would forget about him. As a result of being “stuck in the West,” she was unable to attend her friend Martha’s engagement party on September 3.
Click image to download a 557-KB PDF of this envelope.
Far from being stuck, however, she admitted that “I really adore this place and was very sad at the thought of leaving.” Yet she claimed she “had been looking forward to celebrating the big day with you” and “wouldn’t have missed it for the world if I could have helped it.” She said that her parents were requiring her “to stay out here until about the 10th of September,” which would be right “before college begins,” leaving her little or no time to be with her boyfriend. “If my parents only realized this,” she ranted, “they are just driving me closer to Dick by doing this.”
The letter’s recipient, whose married name was Martha Halsey, was born in 1929 and so would have been 20 when the letter was posted. In 1949, she was a student at Bryn Mawr, and presumably the writer of this letter was as well and was about the same age. Ms. Halsey met her future husband when she was 14 and they were married for 72 years, so it appears that the engagement that was the subject of this letter was successful. She passed away last May, and someone probably bought this letter in an estate sale.
Unfortunately, we don’t know anything about the writer, as the signature appears to be “Heem,” which is a puzzling enough nickname, and without a last name we can’t do more than guess whether she was reunited with her boyfriend or her parents’ scheme was successful — or whether it was all just a story to give Heem an excuse to her friend so she could spend more time in Montana. In any case, the letter gives some insight about youthful angst circa 1949.
For what it’s worth, August 26th, 1949 was a Friday. If “the third” (middle of the closing page, being page 2 of the PDF) was the date of the engagement party for Martha and her fiance, then that would likely have been September 3rd, which was the Saturday of the following weekend (Labour Day weekend).
That must be why the writer ironically chose to send a letter via email, that had been written on Milwaukee Road stationery…so her friend would get it early enough ahead of the big day!
One wonders when college began, then, since her family wanted her to stay in Montana until around Saturday the 10th (“before college begins”?)…and would take the train back, or fly due to time constraints? (Northwest Airlines had 2 eastbound flights a day out of Missoula 2 years earlier in the summer of 1947, and a one-way connecting fare to the East Coast–Newark at least–was $118.70.)
So many mysteries in this letter! I hope it all worked out–one way or another–for our letter writer in the end.
Sorry, just caught my silly mistake in the 2nd paragraph:
“That must be why the writer ironically chose to send a letter via AIR mail,” not “email”!
Anyhow, thank you for sharing it with us.
(Of course, $118.70 was a lot more then than it is now…by comparison, to take the cheapest berth in a Milwaukee Road sleeping car from Missoula to Chicago in 1940 was $48.25 + $6.30 = $54.55 one-way. Add the additional fare for another train to the East Coast–and some modest inflation during the war?–and the plane in 1949 wouldn’t have been too exorbitant for someone well-off. Then again, did she buy a one-way or return ticket when going out to Montana? And was her family with her, or back east? More mysteries!)