Child's letter to 'Maryann' signed 'Dana'

A single sheet of pale green ruled paper, written in pencil in a child’s printed (mostly upper- and lower-case mixed) hand. Addressed to ‘Maryann’ (Mary Ann Walker McEwan, daughter of Amy FitzSimons and James Pickens Walker Sr., and mother of Hunter McEwan’s parents’ generation) and signed ‘Dana.’ The body asks ‘how is Party’ — read as ‘Patty’ or ‘Party’ (the t’s are not crossed; the writer’s phonetic spelling is inconsistent throughout, e.g. ‘hop’ for ‘hope,’ ‘will’ for ‘well,’ ‘to’ for ‘too’), most plausibly the name of a pet, a younger sibling, or a friend. A yellowish stain sits at the left edge mid-page. The hand and content (a child writing about summer plans and wishing the recipient ‘feels better’) place the note in the 1960s–1970s when Mary Ann’s grandchildren and great-nieces/nephews would have been of letter-writing age.

The reading ‘Party’ is uncertain — the writer does not cross the t’s, so the word may equally be ‘Patty.’ Given the kid-phonetic spelling throughout (‘hop’/hope, ‘will’/well, ‘to’/too), ‘Patty’ (a pet or child) is the most plausible reading. ‘will how is Party’ reads as ‘well, how is Party/Patty.’