Went to doctor today. Found out I need an operation this next Monday. I was down in dumps so I bought a couple of dresses (for my condition) and had my hair fixed. Came home to find telegram from Mother saying she would be here tomorrow. Then Dave showed me how to get to airport.
A little shopping therapy is always good for the soul. Maybe not so good for the bank account, but definitely good for the soul.
That's rather unfortunate that Mom finds out she'll be having an operation presumably while my grandmother is visiting. I don't know what the operation was and neither does my sister.
I bet Mom was really looking forward to driving to the airport the next day.
A telegram? What's that? It's time for another history lesson, boys and girls. Way back before email and texting, if you wanted to get a message to someone quickly (faster than snail mail) you had to call them on the telephone. But what did people do before telephones existed, or if one of the parties didn't have a telephone, or if they couldn't depend on the receiver of the message being near the phone when they were called? Well, there was something called the electrical telegraph that came about in the mid-1800s that used electricity to send messages over long distances. Various methods of sending those messages were developed, with the most well-known among them being Morse code.
[Fun fact #1: The Pony Express ceased operations two days after the east coast and west coast of the US became connected by telegraph in October of 1861.]
[Fun fact #2: The Pony Express was in operation less than two years. I had always thought it was one of those things that existed in the wild wild west for decades.]
Anyway, telegrams were a way to quickly send important messages back in the day. As I understand it, the sender would visit the local telegram office, give them the name and address of the recipient, write out or dictate the message, and pay for the telegram. The local office would send that info, presumably via telegraph, to the office closest to the recipient, where it would be printed out and hand delivered to the recipient at his or her address. Isn't technology amazing!
As you can imagine, the use of telegrams gradually declined as telephones became household items. And then after Al Gore invented the internet, the fate of telegrams was surely doomed. The most well-known company to send telegrams, Western Union, discontinued their telegram service in 2006 because they sent ONLY 20,000 telegrams the previous year. But if you still want to send a telegram you can use iTelegram dot com. (It's not cheap, surprise surprise.)
In case you've never seen a telegram, today is your lucky day. Mom saved the telegram my grandmother sent her about the flight arrangements. Here are scans of the front and back of the envelope, with the telegram inside.
The envelope itself measures 3-1/2" x 6-1/2". The recipient's name and address are visible through the front window. (Note the misspelling of the street name. It should be "Normandie.") The back of the envelope informs you that on any occasion, it's wise to wire.
Here's a scan of the telegram itself. Unfolded it measures 8" x 5-3/4".
Some things to note:
- The part glued over the second "N" in "Union" at the top looks like a series of emoticons to me, especially if I turn my head sideways.
- The second line shows the city and state of origin (DENTON TE) and the time it was sent, which was 4:07 PM Central Daylight Time. That would be 2:07 PM in Los Angeles. I assume the telegram was sent on Tuesday, since Monday was Labor Day.
- The stamp on the right side indicates the telegram was received at the other end at 2:45 PM Pacific Daylight Time. That's 38 minutes after it was sent. Not too bad I suppose, considering all the cutting and pasting required to create the telegram in Los Angeles.
Ok, so now we know my grandmother (Nana) arrives on a plane tomorrow afternoon, and Mom and I are going to pick her up at the airport. I can only imagine how excited I was, because unfortunately I don't remember Nana visiting us at all. I find that really strange, and a little sad, given what bits and pieces I do remember from our time in Los Angeles. Maybe some upcoming diary entries will jog my memory.
No comments:
Post a Comment