August 21, 1914 - "Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough . . ."

This copy of a letter Joe wrote his good friend Henry Saltman. The paper is fragile, but survived. He must have used carbon paper when he typed this. I am not sure why he wanted a copy but it is really quite humorous and shows how differently people communicated 100 years ago. Or at least how Joe communicated.

August 21, 1914.
Dear Henry:
I have just received the official announcement of your betrothal, and it caused me the same amount of surprise to learn this happy fact as it causes a prospective candidate for the Presidency of the United States to receive his Official Notification that he was nominated to the national Convention held three months previous, at and about which time he probably had many sleepless nights and corresponding days of agony over the outcome of his claims.

However, I presume that I ought therefore to officially acknowledge receipt of this intelligence and also again officially congratulate you in the warmest and most ardent possible way; but language was “made to conceal thought” and so am at a loss to adequately soliloquize on your good luck and happiness in this written form.

And yet, I believe that you must feel like that handsome young Omar did when he sent that little piece of parchment to the Princess-that sweet faced damsel sitting over on the left-side of the stage amid that beautiful Persian landscape and scenery-on which he had written

"Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough,
A flask of wine, a book of verses, and thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness
And wilderness is Paradise *enow."

And I suppose that Rose at- this moment enjoying herself up in Vermont as she sits occasionally and talks to her friends, or sits at the piano and plays, maybe ‘Just a Little Love, a Little Kiss’ suddenly stops and her mind wanders towards fair Connecticut, just as Marguerite’s did on a somewhat similar occasion while singing the Thule Song, then suddenly says, ‘How foolish’, or something else as silly but which she does not really mean, and starts to spin again.

Well; I needn't write any further for you know I wish you joy; and as the poet once said

"I think I'll wander down to see you,
When you're married, eh, my boy?"

You just bet I will.
Sincerely yours,


* enow means enough
This is an excerpt from The Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam.


The next post will be photographs of Helen and her family on summer vacation on August 29.