A vintage order, delivered in two days

I love snooping.

Details of people’s lives pop up in surprising places.

I have an old debit book from a rural store containing sales charged to store accounts. It was a record of what people used, wore, ate.

They bought about the same amount of kerosene each week. They used it for lamps. Meal and flour were sold by the pound as was beef, cheese, potatoes and bacon.

During the covered years fewer folks were self-sufficient.

It is difficult to toss some things that belonged to my mother. I pull something from a box or envelope, ponder over it, try to find some use for it, put it aside or discard it and go on.

My use for this item is to share what I found. Then it also will be gone.

The item floated to the top of a pile of papers. I don’t know why she had it nor why she kept it. This is a Sears order form completed Feb. 26, 1934 by her mother. My family line on both sides were loyal Sears customers as were many rural families.

The relevance of that date is important. Look at it again.

My grandmother ordered seven items from Sears and the order came to $4.64 plus a quarter for return postage.

There was nothing much going on in that family in 1934. My parents would marry in two years. My grandmother’s youngest child was eight. She might have been making things for herself or a neighbor: Judging from the fabric I think she was making a couple of dresses.

Here is the order. Three ecru curtains at 45¢ each. Ecru is sort of a yellowish gray. Four and a half yards of rose colored marquisette print fabric at 10¢ per yard, four and a half yards of orchid colored cotton voile fabric at 10¢ per yard.

She ordered two yards of cretonne fabric at 10¢ per yard.

Three six-foot, sand colored window shades cost $1.26 each.

I suspect my grandmother was about to make quilts. She ordered a six pound bolt of cotton batting at 54¢.

Finally, there was a pink crib blanket for 39¢. Someone had a baby girl.

The order was filled and shipped on Feb. 28. It holds a stamp of the National Recovery Act and is checked as inspected. The nearest fulfillment center was in Atlanta.

Did you catch that?

Today you can deposit a letter into the drop box of the LaFayette, Georgia, post office and hope it will get to Atlanta in two days. In 1934 an order was mailed from a rural route 2 mail box, transported, delivered, fulfilled and shipped in two days.

That’s my takeaway from this.

Joe Phillips writes from his home in Atlanta, Ga. He and wife Kay also have a house in Kay’s hometown of Washington. He can be contacted through email at Joenphillips@yahoo.com.