Child's pencil letter to 'Gam' from 'Bee jr.': trip to N.C., death of Champo and Pookie, fire that burned the Famous and Monroe Hotel (page 1 of 2)

A child’s letter in pencil cursive on a single sheet of decorative letter-stationery printed with painted clusters of violets in the upper-left and upper-right corners. The text fills the page and continues on page 210, which is signed “Bee jr.” The writer is a young grandchild of the compiler Amy FitzSimons Walker (addressed as “Gam”). The letter mentions a recent N.C. visit, an airplane trip home, two pet dogs (the writer’s “Champo” and a neighbour’s “Pookie”) dying while the writer was away, and a fire the night before the writer got home in which “The Famous” (a department store) “burned down and so did the Monroe Hotel.” The “Monroe Hotel” — a landmark of Hendersonville, N.C. — was destroyed by fire on 28 March 1953 along with several adjacent businesses on Main Street; the same fire is the most likely referent, dating this letter to late March or early April 1953. The writer’s home is Hendersonville, N.C., with Amy’s Mills River farm nearby (cf. p281 and p280). “Wist” is preserved as the child’s spelling for “visit”; “plane” is airplane (the child flew home).

The fire that destroyed the Monroe Hotel and “The Famous” department store on Hendersonville’s Main Street pins this letter to late March 1953 — the same year that Puck Corbell (the writer’s young son) was being treated for cancer in New York (see pages 219–227). Letter continues on page 210.