THE FOOTNOTES

Ever see a telegram? Maybe not. In the time of World War II, television and computers had not yet appeared. If you wanted to send a message in a short time, you could telephone, if the other party had a phone, and if you had a phone, or you could send a "wire." This was a telegram which would be delivered to the door of the recipient by somebody like Noonski, whose first job on his 16th birthday was to deliver telegrams for Western Union-- and to get to the destination by riding a bicycle in all kinds of weather, winter or summer, and for twenty-five cents an hour. Here's a telegram Noonski sent to his parents from Naval Training Station in Bainbridge, Maryland in 1944.
Western Union offices were in all cities including New Britain, where my mother worked for 32 years. I haven't seen a Western Union office in several generations.
The attached telegram is crumbling after all these years, and I thought it would be on interest to view this relic of a bygone age.