Monday, June 6, 2016

16 July 1919: Tulsa, Oklahoma; A letter from George Potter


I found the following 1919 letter from George Potter to his daughter Mary back in Erie, Pennsylvania in a box of miscellaneous holiday and gift cards, mostly from persons unknown to me, rather than in the carefully-sorted files where Mary kept her (many) old letters.

This letter is special, if a bit odd, since it is addressed to Mary (age 8 at the time) but gives instructions on what to pack and move from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma, and how to pack things.  It provides an interesting mental inventory of a household of the time, although in a form Gladys Potter probably neither needed nor wanted.  George has been in Tulsa for a while (he has an "ingrown appetite" from living in boarding houses), but his family would not arrive until January, 1920.

There seems to have been a rather good piano to sell (perhaps Mary Minerva Hasbrouck Potter had played once...although Victorian parlor furnishings may well have included a piano without anyone able to play it).  There was also a chair with Mary Hasbrouck's grandfather's name (Robert Heath) mentioned specifically...I wonder what happened to it.

Please click the letters to enlarge them if necessary.

Letter, July 16, 1919
The inflation factor 1919-2016 is about 20x

note:  the Benders mentioned here are Gladys'
aunt "Vine" Lore Bender (1865-1945)
and husband Eli Bender.  



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