by Nancy Donald, Collections Manager

 

While looking in Emma's dresser in the front bedroom, our intern Ella Spandorf and I pulled out the bottom drawer and discovered packets of letters, photos of our mother as a baby, Emma's Mills Seminary diploma, prints of the Cohen camp on the Gualala river and more. I just love surprises—don't you?

 

My favorites are the 1929–1930 letters written back to Emma after she sent Christmas cards to her family and friends telling them that her youngest daughter Emelita was in the hospital for four months with pleurisy, a breathing disorder caused by pneumonia. When she was bedridden, Emelita learned how to carve linoleum blocks. She then became the creator and distributor of a line of greeting cards, which she sold via her network of friends and family. She covered her expenses and made a slight profit. As far as we can tell, she did not distribute them through stationery stores. (You can buy her cards from our shop!)

 

Here is a sampling of letters from Emma's son Douglas and his wife Marjorie (my grandparents) and Marjorie's mother Maud, my great-grandmother from Chiliwack, British Columbia.

 

Ella also worked on the second drawer to catalog the linens and lace found there.

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The top drawer items were added to our collections by intern Raquel Moral.

 

Click on photos below to view the full image

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