Jack, Naomi, and Governor Cox - by Alan Borer
Letters, and their miniature cousins, postcards, were the only way of long range communication available to us from our country’s founding to at least the invention of the telegraph in 1845. Letters, more affordable than telegraphy, kept their place as the primary bringer of news until the email revolution of the 1990s. Until then, letters delivered by the once hyper-efficient Post Office, brought news of all types from far and near to your doorstep.
Take a random letter from Westerville dated September 12, 1918. The letter is addressed to Naomi Mayer of Decatur, Indiana. A German-speaking girl, the daughter of a brick maker, Naomi at the time of the letter had a boyfriend named Jack, a student enrolled at Otterbein. Jack left us no last name; assuming his first name was John, his last name may have been Clark, Kurtz, of Metsker, the only three Johns in the freshman class of 1918-19. That assumes he was a freshman, only a shaky guess. Another guess assumes that the relationship was mutual. Many are the love affairs which are one sided!
1918. Wartime in the quiet, peaceful village. The letter was surely a piece of war news, or perhaps a more pedestrian bit of news about business. The writing is quite legible:
I wish I could hold you in my arms and smother you with Burning Kisses.[i]
Hold it! We want to keep this a family oriented blog! No face chewing! Let me quote from a different paragraph:
Believe me this is some dead town. It is worse than [illegible town name]. I suppose it will liven up after things get started [at Otterbein].
One of the ironies of the twentieth century is that the period’s “modern” technology, coupled with the many wars, riots, traffic, and noise they brought, robbed almost all of us of our quiet. Westerville is no longer quiet or peaceful. With the ever-present din of the nearby expressways as a backdrop, hardly any of us today would comfortably call Westerville a “dead town.” Whether the background sound of our world is progress or backsliding may depend on the individual.
Gossip, romance, and politics:
I heard Gov. Cox speak this P. M. at the College Chapel. He made a good speech [even] if he is a Democrat. Ha!
Cox was indeed in Westerville at the opening of the collegiate school year. He gave a topical speech, saying that
“in the present war the college man has a distinct advantage over men who have had no college training.” [ii]
President W. G. Clippinger shared the stage with Cox, stating that he was adding “war aims” to the curriculum of Otterbein, a possible reference the military training that male students had to undergo in wartime. A possible reference to Jack’s opinion of Cox is in the last word of his quote.
Jack did not marry his potential sweetheart, Naomi. She married a fellow Hoosier in 1924, and moved with him to San Diego, California, where she died in 1993. Governor Cox faced down Warren G. Harding in the 1920 presidential election, losing by a substantial amount. Without Jack’s full name, we can trace him no further. Many holes remain in our story, but the letter does give us a taste of that long ago September in wartime.
[i] “Jack” to Naomi Mayer, September 12, 1918. Author’s Collection.
[ii] Columbus Dispatch, September 12, 1918
James Cox