This is just one of many odd pieces of domestic paperwork that happened to find their way into the archive, but I’m posting the ones I find especially interesting or poignant. Walter was a tall man, and here we see that Ina has decided to splurge on something special for him: an extra-long boxspring and mattress for their bed. He’d probably slept on beds that were too short his whole life. Hecht Brothers was a high-end department store, the Baltimore equivalent of Macy’s.

$62 in 1948 equals $600 in today’s money, but Hecht’s is extinct, and ordinary department store employees who dictate lengthy letters to customers are no longer available.

February 27, 1948