Letter to 'Gam': trip to Nags Head, signed 'Dee jr.' (page 2 of 2)

Second sheet of the child’s pencil letter begun on page 209. The text occupies only the top half of the sheet, with the closing and signature “Dee jr.” at the right. The lower half of the sheet is blank. The writer signs “Dee jr.” The first letter shows a clear closed loop at the top characteristic of a script “D” rather than a “B.” The signature is the writer’s familiar nickname in the same childish pencil cursive used on p209. Together with the Hendersonville Monroe Hotel fire reference on p209 (28 March 1953), the most plausible identification is Emma Dee Walker Corbell — the compiler Amy’s eldest daughter, also called “Dee” — signing “Dee jr.” (the elder Dee being her paternal grandmother Emma Dee Pickens Walker, b. 1856, J. P. Walker Sr.'s mother, for whom she was named). The hand here is youthful but not childish-print and is plausibly Dee Corbell’s own as a young woman writing to her mother “Gam.” p209’s title still retains the earlier “Bee jr.” reading and should be brought in line.

Lower half of sheet blank. The signature is Dee jr. — the same hand as page 209’s opening. Most likely Emma Dee Walker Corbell (“Dee”), the compiler’s daughter, signing as “junior” to differentiate from another Dee in the family circle (cf. p226 P.S. distinguishing “Dee Polite” from “Dee Corbelle”). Given the 1953 Monroe Hotel context on p209, the trip to Nags Head described here is the Corbell family’s coastal-N.C. holiday after Dee’s spring stay in N.Y. with her young son Puck during his cancer treatment (cf. pp223–226). “Momma and Daddy” went on a one-day reconnaissance; this would be Mr. and Mrs. Corbell — Dr. Robert L. Corbell Jr. and Dee herself if she is writing as “Dee jr.,” with “Momma and Daddy” meaning her parents Amy and James Pickens Walker. Identification not certain.