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.
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| Letter, July 16, 1919 The inflation factor 1919-2016 is about 20x |
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| note: the Benders mentioned here are Gladys' aunt "Vine" Lore Bender (1865-1945) and husband Eli Bender. |
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