Vintage Air Mail

In preparation for the obituary for Daddy, I did quite a bit of research on his professional career. One of the things that aided me most was a big box of letters from Daddy written to my grandparents. Grandma saved many of the letters and post cards written by Daddy while he traveled the world.

His career as the President of the International Division of a large corporation that built farm machinery and large trucks took him around the globe. He visited over 130 countries in 25 years. On average, he made return trips to 107 of these countries per year.

Of course there were all of the European countries, but there were also visits to many of the African nations, all of the South American ones, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Thailand, India, all of the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, China, Korea, Japan and more.

With each visit, he never failed to mail post cards and letters to us. His extensive collection of photos educated us in the culture and customs of the diverse nations of our world. Once after his return from a trip to India, I was fascinated by his photos of the Taj Mahal. The next day in school my teacher asked each of us to draw a picture of a house. Of course mine was of the Taj Mahal! I have a huge collection of dolls from every corner of the globe, yet I think that I love the letters the most because they are full of detail of the wonders he experienced.

I love the air mail envelopes and the beautiful stamps. Thank you Grandma for saving these letters for us. Now that Daddy is gone, they are all the more precious. Below is the business portrait of Daddy. It was taken by the famous portraitist Fabian Bachrach. Bachrach took the famous photo of JFK while he was the Senator from Massachussets. That portrait was used for the cover of Time Magazine. Bachrach died this past February at the age of 92. He photographed the Presidents through the first George Bush as well as Joe DiMaggio, Robert Frost and many others.

Thank you for visiting me today. Be sure to stop by to visit our dear friend Suzanne The Colorado Lady for Vintage Thingie Thursday!!

No Bentley, your Grandpa never brought back any dog toys for you from foreign lands. You were not born yet.

Love,

Susan and Bentley

xxoo