next post December 23, 1947 AM
previous post December 16, 1947
first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
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Arnold had written to request copies of certain pathology charts from Ciba Pharmaceutical Products Inc., but they were no longer in stock.
next post December 19, 1947
previous post December 12, 1947
first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
first post in blog Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943
Pat Nevis writes to her brother-in-law Arnold about upcoming plans for the Christmas holiday. She mentions catching the boat, which is a ferry across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan to Hoboken, where they take the Lackawanna Railroad to their apartment in Madison, New Jersey.
next post December 16, 1947
previous post Leonard's Story: December 11, 1947
first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
first post in blog Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943
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
previous post December 3, 1947
first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
first post in blog Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943
A letter from Elmer E. Hall, Sr., with a note from Betty M.:
next post Leonard's Story: December 11, 1947
previous post December 1, 1947 LJN
first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
first post in blog Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943
Here is a letter from Leonard to his brother Arnold. Len finds it hard work to break into the New York accounting and records market, and is planning to start to do sales himself. The train ride from Madison, New Jersey, to New York City takes a little over an hour on New Jersey Transit today, but runs under the Hudson River to Penn Station. The Lackawanna Railroad went only to Hoboken Terminal, where ferries took passengers across the Hudson River to lower Manhattan, yet Len says his commute to downtown Manhattan is less than an hour and faster than the subway trip from Rockaway in Queens Borough.
next post December 3, 1947
previous post December 1, 1947 Bill
first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
first post in blog Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943
Here is Arnold's War Department identification card:
next post 1945 misc
previous post February 17, 1945
first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
first post in blog Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943
I do not know which Bill this one is. It might be Bill McCord.
next post December 1, 1947 LJN
previous post November 30, 1947
first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
first post in blog Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943
I am not sure what the Roal Club is, but I might guess Roal is the Reserve Officers Association League. The Unsuspected was a 1947 film noir directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Claude Rains, among others, and written by Charlotte Armstrong (Lewi). A Mrs. Lewi has come up in an earlier letter from Hazel in regard to the former's son Jerry, so she must be well known around Glendale and probably a family acquaintance.
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| These scribblings may be homework for Arnold's Anatomy course or topics for an upcoming examination |
next post December 1, 1947 Bill
previous post November 28, 1947
first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
first post in blog Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943
Jim McDade writes Arnold from his parents' home in Texas with a return address of Northwestern University.
next post November 30, 1947
previous post November 25, 1947
first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
first post in blog Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943
Arnold's sister-in-law Pat writes him, canceling their Thanksgiving plans. They now hope to be in they new apartment in Madison, New Jersey, by December and have invited Arnold down to spend Christmas with them.
next post November 28, 1947
previous post November 24, 1947 MHN
first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
first post in blog Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943
Hazel writes about their unexpected trip to California's Central Valley, specifically to Hanford, the Nevis familial home. Bill's brother-in-law (Arnold's uncle) Manuel Mello passed away. Manuel's widow Laura took it badly.
The anticommunist incident she describes in the letter was an invasion of the Crescenda-Cañada Democratic club in a private home by twenty men, who wore American Legion hats, threatening the host and his guests. The police were summoned by the Legionnaires said that the Democrats were communists and no charges were filed. The host was Hugh Hardiman, a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union, was incensed and made a big noise in the media the next day. Because some Legionnaires wore their hats they could be identified as belonging to Glendale Post 127. It grabbed national attention, and eventually went to trial. Even Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling heard the radio broadcasts and saved the transcripts of the radio interviews and newspaper clips in his archive. Nine of the accused were reporters and photographers and had the charges dropped, but twelve Legionnaires were convicted of disturbing the peace and subsequently got fined.
next post November 25, 1947
previous post November 22 & 24, 1947
first post in Arnold's Story July 1943
first post in blog Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943