Starting with this letter from Arnold's brother Leonard to their mother Hazel, letters from Len are interspersed with those to and from Arnold. The family frequently shared letters from one member with other members of the family, so this may have been pass on to Arnold.
The Oscar-winning movie Miracle on 34th Street had been released in Spring 1947, so it was relatively new at the time of this letter. written and directed by George Seaton and based on a story by Valentine Davies. It stars Maureen O'Hara and child actor Natalie Wood, among others.
Bluewater New Mexico was where Len was born. Family lore has it that he should have been born in a hospital in Albuquerque but arrived prematurely. Arnold and Dolly were born in Albuquerque as planned. Their father Bill Nevis was running a lime kiln and general store; the lime kiln failed after the primary customer the railroad trains changed technology and stopped using lime. The the general store did poorly in competition with the Mormon-run store in Bluewater, where a large number of families were Mormon and shopped loyally with the competitor. Bill ran successfully for county tax collector after that and saw what poor records the local businesses maintained, so he developed his own tax record form and eventually patented it. After he sold the patent he relocated the family to Los Angeles, but the Great Depression presented a new opportunity as he found out the owner of the patent for his form was in financial trouble and could not sell a warehouse full of the forms. Bill bought all the forms as a discount (not the patent) and was able to parley that into his Ideal System Company for tax and record keeping.
The ready-made clothing industry was centered in New York City, in the area known as the Garment District in midtown Manhattan, and initially employed a large number of émigré Central and Eastern European Jews. The Garment District of New York was in its peak after the WWII years hitting decline by about 1970, though it remains a world fashion center still over fifty years later.
next post December 12, 1947
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first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
first post in blog Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943
