Telegram from Kit FitzSimons to Ellen M. FitzSimons on her sailing for Europe, 16 June 1911
Book 1, Page 511 ·1911
Transcription
A small Postal Telegraph form, printed in dark blue ink on cream paper, with a pasted receipt-strip in the upper-right corner.
POSTAL TELEGRAPH — COMMERCIAL CABLES
CLARENCE H. MACKAY, PRESIDENT
TELEGRAM
DELIVERY No. ____
[At upper right, pasted slip:] RECEIVED AT POSTAL TELEGRAPH-CABLE CO. 853 BROADWAY.
The Postal Telegraph-Cable Company (Incorporated) transmits and delivers this message subject to the terms and conditions printed on the back of this blank.
[Filing line, in blue typewriter ink:]
ny89m. 78 DESIGN PATENT No. 40529.
[Body of message, in typewriter ink:]
Columbia, S.C. June 16, '11
Miss Ellen M. Fitzsimmons,
Margaret Louis Home, NYC.
Too sorry I missed seeing you off I instructed our Newyork office to give you one hundred dollars for me and I want you to spend it on yourself and only on yourself on this trip. I have also ordered box flowers sent to the boat for you. We have representatives of our company all over Europe and you can cable me any time you want assistance of any kind in your travels and happy holiday to you.
C. Fitzsimmons.
1214pm.
AI Notes
A Postal Telegraph — Commercial Cables form printed in dark blue, bordered by the company’s display heading POSTAL TELEGRAPH — COMMERCIAL CABLES / CLARENCE H. MACKAY, PRESIDENT / TELEGRAM, with a separate pasted “RECEIVED AT POSTAL TELEGRAPH-CABLE CO. / 853 BROADWAY” rubber-stamp slip at the upper right (the New York office of receipt). Filing number ny89m. 78 at the upper left beside the DESIGN PATENT No. 40529 notice. Filed in Columbia, S.C. on June 16, 1911 and addressed to Miss Ellen M. Fitzsimmons c/o the Margaret Louis[a] Home, NYC — a YWCA-run residence for young women travellers in New York City (the typist has dropped the final “a”). The sender is signed C. Fitzsimmons; per the album divider on page 504 (“Telegram from Kit S.S. when Ellie sailed for Europe”) this is Christopher FitzSimons (Kit), Ellen’s brother, then a businessman in Columbia, S.C. with European representatives (“we have representatives of our company all over Europe”). Time stamp 1214pm at the lower left. The sender “C. Fitzsimmons” is identified via the divider note on page 504 as Christopher FitzSimons (Kit); the recipient is Ellen Milliken FitzSimons #1 (Charleston Library Society Librarian, 1862–1953); the NYC address is the Margaret Louisa Home, a YWCA-run residence for travelling women (typist dropped the final “a”); 853 Broadway receipt stamp and design-patent number 40529 noted.
The sender “C. Fitzsimmons” is Christopher FitzSimons (Kit) of Columbia, S.C. — Ellen’s elder brother — sending his sister a generous hundred-dollar wire (roughly equivalent to several thousand 2020s dollars) and a box of flowers to her boat as she sails for Europe. The album divider on page 504 explicitly identifies this telegram as “from Kit S.S. when Ellie sailed for Europe.” Recipient Ellen Milliken FitzSimons #1 would have been about 49 in June 1911 and had been Librarian of the Charleston Library Society for some thirteen years (she served 1898–1948). The “Margaret Louis Home” is the typist’s contraction of the Margaret Louisa Home (later Margaret Louisa Shepard Home), a YWCA-run residence for travelling women at 14 East 16th Street, New York City — a respectable address for a single woman in transit between Charleston and a transatlantic sailing.