Letter: Charlotte King

4/21/18

Dear Calla,
I was very glad to hear about your contract for next year. Perhaps, if you are so near Binghamton you can get a chance to take a business course.

We have moved into beautiful new quarters and I have a private office handsomely furnished in comparison to my previous offices.

I hope to get a few days off in a few weeks and will make a flying trip to Sidney. However will let you know positively when I am coming. I am so anxious to get a glimpse of the country and most of all a look at you up there.

Natalie is growing so big - she will be a surprise.

Dear Calla, I thank you very much for getting the wreath for Ivan's grave. It must have been beautiful from the description.

The city wears a very festive look these days. Heaps of men in uniforms, Liberty Crow posters everywhere & parades daily. Our Headquarters is at 16 East 39th Street right in the heart of things, so that we keep in touch with all the doings.

Altman's have decorated their building with that wonderful flag, I pass it every day & always stop to look at it.

Hoping to find you all well when I came with lots of love,

Lottie

XXXXXXXXX
Natalie


Notes: Charlotte L. King (Lottie) was Calla's sister in law, married to her brother Ivan. She lived in Weehawken, NJ and worked in New York City at the American Committee for devastated France. According to her passport application she was a stenographer, but a letter from the Committee attached to her application mentions that she is being sent to France for "overseas service." This photo was taken from that application, (found online).

I find several examples in folk art sites of "Liberty Crows" but I am not sure exactly what they are or why there would be posters of them all over midtown Manhattan.

About Altman's: "Altman & Co. opened their new store in 1906. It was the first large-scale department store on Fifth Avenue and occupied a whole city block. The building was designed to blend into the grand residential structures that dominated the area at that time.

The building went without outside signs for 25 years, perhaps out of deference to high-class residential neighbors. It was built catty-corner to the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

It now stands catty-corner to the Empire State Building. During World War I the company began displaying what may have been the largest American flag ever hung. It measured 100 by 65 feet and covered much of the building's Fifth Avenue front."