I rarely buy things at antique stores, but I picked these up at an antique mall a few years ago for $2 each. They are real treasures. I love to look through them. I'm not sure if they belonged to the same person or not. The memo book is half a travel expense log and half a log of letters written back and forth. The date is 1936! How cool is that. The travel expense log lists every day from Feb. 9th 1936 (leaving Salt Lake for Mesa, Arizona) until April 7th 1936.
Don't you love the names? Ruth, Marjorie, Ethel... These were all correspondences during the trip.
The last entry in this part of the book:
Monday, April 6th Received a telegram from Ruth advising me to stay longer.
There is also this page which I love: Fruit in my cellar 1947
Now for the address book. Look at the phone numbers :) 5 or 6 digits!
Here are two entries I found especially interesting. For those of you not LDS (Mormon) or from Utah, ZCMI was THE department/general store back in it's day. It was the original general store when the Mormon pioneers first settled here, and it stuck around until just a few years ago when they started closing them.
If you're LDS, you'll recognize this name: Heber J. Grant, and yes, this would have been the time period when he was the president of the church. Could it be THE Heber J. Grant? I don't know, Salt Lake wasn't that big back in those days, church members very well could have had the phone number of the prophet. Whether it's him or not, I find it very interesting.
19 comments:
The contents are fascinating, but I think what also makes these so appealing is the beautiful handwriting. People really learned gorgeous penmanship in those days.
I agree! I'm really drawn to that lovely handwriting.
Cool find! I love going to the
antique malls you never know what
will turn up! I use the LDS site
all the time for genealogy, I heard
they are expanding the records again! Oh Joy!
very cool-I need to dig out my Grandad's little journal from WW1-it even has some Arabic in it, guess he was trying to get around in Egypt!
Roslyn
I agree the handwriting is very elegant looking. Love that you have such neat records of days past. Nice post.
Who would have thought an expense account book would be so interesting!...makes me want to know more about these people.
Okay, first of all, it's probably the voyeur in me, but I love finding stuff like that and reading other peoples' lists. That's why I'm addicted to Found Magazine. Second, the stuff in my basement list reminds me of something one would find in my memo book. If any of mine ever end up in an antique store, there's going to be some happy soul out there going, "What the heck does 'pink flamingo rolex' mean?" hahahaha. Thanks for sharing.
That handwriting looks nearly exactly like my grandmother's. I wish I'd been taught penmanship like that.
I'm a total voyeur about stuff like this too. I love looking into the past through a window of an individual life. What a great find.
Super unique!
What a great peek into the past!
How cool is that? My aunt is an estate organizer, and loves note pads and journals no matter what they contain. The handwriting in yours is so cool!
What a fascinating insight into a bygone era...i love the handwriting too wasn't it fancy back then!!
Great treasures. The handwriting can't be beat. They just don't teach that anymore - it's actually a dying art! So fascinating to see other's to-do lists, etc.
What is interesting is that they paid $.30 for dinner in Las Vegas! Where did they eat, because that sounds like my kind of restaurant! ;-) Thanks for sharing such an awesome find!
I have some little books as well as ledgers from my grandfather's business. They're very cool to learn about how much things cost and how business was conducted. If you ever decide to get rid of them see if a local historic society might want them.
How neat...it must really be fun to look through these two finds.
Those vintage journals are a treasure.
Those are so totally awesome! I can't believe you got them for just $2 each!
I love the handwriting in these...so neat and pretty. What a fun find!
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