April Scanfest

Sunday afternoon I participated in the April Scanfest. I scanned five or six letters written to and from my maternal grandparents and their supervisors while they were employed at the post office.

1) There was the letter in 1933 from my grandfather to the Chief Postal Inspector in Washington DC, accepting a promotion and a position in St. Louis. He also requested the spelling of his name changed from Deutsch to the way it was pronounced Dyche. I don't have the response, so I don't know whether the request was denied, or my grandfather changed his mind. However, when I showed my mom the letter, she expressed gratitude that it never happened.

2) There was a letter from the Chief Postal Inspector in December of 1936 congratulating my grandfather on his recovery from an attack of appendicitis, as well as congratulating him on his engagement to my grandmother. I don't have the letter that my grandfather sent informing him of both of these events.

3) There was also a letter congratulating my grandparents in January of 1937 on their marriage, and a letter from my grandfather requesting vacation.

4) I also have a letter from my grandmother in 1944 resigning from a war-time position in St. Louis, as she wished to join her husband who was now stationed in the states in Florida. Her war-time employment in the Post Office was not part of her Personnel File which I received from the archives. I am rerequesting it under her married name as I suspect that somehow the two files were kept separate. I find it hard to believe that when she applied for the position she didn't make it clear that she had worked for the post office for sixteen years between 1920 and 1936, and if she had, I don't know why her employment between 1942-1944 wouldn't have shown up with her earlier records. But perhaps "it's the government" is simple explanation enough.

I should note that none of the letters from my grandparents are signed copies. I have no evidence they were sent as typed. They could have retyped something else and sent it, and kept the first draft. I don't know why they would have done that, but they could have.

I also scanned about 30 photographs. Here are two of my favorites from the bunch.

An oldtime postcard. Nothing was written on the postcard, so it appears it was in my grandfather's collection for the humor, and for its relationship to his postal employment.



And an excellent photograph of my grandmother laughing. It's unknown what she was laughing at.