Mail Call: 26 Feb 1936 (George)

"...you don't look like that,
altho it may resemble you in some details"

Charcoal, Alphonse Bare, 1935
see below for artist's details

From George Potter in Cabool, Missouri to his daughter Mary Potter in Washington, DC.


Cabool has a new cash-only grocery store, so the cost of credit built into Fielden's Grocery prices becomes visible.  Nothing to be done, George can't get ahead.


The chickens, too, cost more in their feed than their eggs (and themselves) are worth.


George has "washed my hands of the whole affair" of Dorothy Potter's anticipated engagement with a much older man with one (or more) exes.


Marjorie Potter is bored to the point of counting "dog dumplings" in the yard....38 in total.


"He who laughs last gathers no moss...David"

"John" is John House, his "ranch" is near Houston, MO 

"Roy" is neighbor Arch Brooks' son; with wife Mildred in Wash. DC

"Dora" is George's sister in E. St. Louis, and "Walt" Bremerkamp is her husband.

 *************

The charcoal portrait of Mary was signed by Alphonse Bare (1916-1992)
who was a 20 year old art student in 1935 and,
with Mary's boyfriend Art, a recent graduate of Huntington, NY High School.
The portrait was probably started when Mary visited NY over Christmas, 1935.

The portrait in the photograph differs from the finished work in that
the rough-worked areas away from the center have been filled in.
I suspect the bad influence of an art teacher in the in-filling,
since Mr. Bare's later work in pastel portraiture
is most similar to photograph.

Mr. Bare had a day-job career as a "comic book" line artist and inker;
"comic book" taken broadly to include romances and other non-superhero genres,
as well as the humor magazine "Sick."

.