Wedding invitation: Mary Ann Walker to Oswald Beverley McEwan, 14 May 1941

Engraved wedding invitation on cream stock, printed in elegant copperplate script. The year ‘1941’ has been added at the bottom in blue ballpoint, presumably by the compiler or a later family hand. Pages 1 and 2 of Book 3 are duplicate copies of the same invitation. The marriage is that of Mary Ann Walker, daughter of James Pickens Walker and Amy FitzSimons Walker, to Lt. Oswald Beverley McEwan. The bride’s parents are the compiler of the bound albums and her husband. Faint vertical fold-crease through center; no marginalia besides the ‘1941’ annotation already noted.

The marriage joins the compiler’s family to the McEwan line. Mary Ann Walker is the daughter of the compiler, Amy FitzSimons Walker, and her husband James Pickens Walker; Lt. Oswald Beverley McEwan of the U.S. Army is the founder of the McEwan branch through whom the album later descends — “Nancy’s book” is named for one of their descendants. The wedding date, 14 May 1941, falls seven months before Pearl Harbor: the bride is marrying a serving Army officer on the eve of American entry into the Second World War. Book 3 collects the loose Walker–McEwan-era keepsakes held alongside the two bound FitzSimons albums.