Xmas in July

Last night I was helping my mother organize photos, and a previously undiscovered box was found in a storage room. This box contained about two dozen letters from my great grandfather Melvin Van Every to my grandmother, Myrtle Van Every, (in addition to another dozen I had found in another box and had begun to transcribe.)

It also contained a letter my great grandmother, Margaret (Denyer) Van Every wrote to my grandmother at some point in time before 1923 (I think it was written in 1919 or 1920.) Margaret consoles her daughter on a divorce. I already knew about a later marriage to a Dale Ridgely, but I now know my grandmother had at least three marriages. (The divorce papers from Dale Ridgely were also in the box providing the exact date of marriage - and an unexpected location - Oakland, California. hat marriage certificate will now be easy to obtain, though I now have another to search for.)

There was a sizable collection of telegrams and letters my grandfather sent my grandmother in the 1930s and 1940s.

I found high school and college transcripts for my grandmother.

There was also a handful of unused humorous holiday postcards. The references to the New Deal suggest they were either purchased or received by my grandmother in the early 1930s.