Covid-19 Life: Vaccinated! and Some Interesting Handkerchiefs Find a Home

Hooray! My spouse and I have both received our second Covid-19 vaccinations. April 8 is the day we can begin to cautiously reenter the world: missed doctor appointments are first up on the list. 

New on my TBR NetGalley shelf is

• Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid: The Fraught and Fascinating Biology of Climate Change by Thor Hanson
• The Magician by Colm Toibin, fiction about the novelist Thomas Mann 
• Rooted by Lynda Lynn Haupt whose Mozart's Starling I deeply enjoyed
• Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead, story of a daredevil female aviator
• Theater for Dreamers by Polly Sampson

The pandemic has motivated me to think about 'last things' and where 'things' will at last end up.

In other words, its time to find homes for some things I have collected.

First up, three handkerchiefs signed by First Ladies.

In 1993 a signed handkerchief collection belonging to Mrs Mildred Maulding was sold off on eBay. I purchased three of the handkerchiefs signed by First Ladies, including Bess Wallace Truman, Patricia Nixon, and Betty Ford. I believe I paid about $15 each.

The handkerchief signed by Betty Ford came with a letter from the White House that is dated February 5,1975. It is addressed to Mrs. Mildred Maulding, 1301 Northeast Glendale Avenue, Peoria, Illinois 60603 and is from Nancy M. Howe, Special Assistant to Mrs Ford. The letter confirmed that the handkerchief was from Betty Ford. The handkerchief signed by Bess Wallace Truman is dated 6/7/68.

The seller, Nancy Ashburst, included an appraisal of the collection in a letter dated 1993. In the collection were handkerchiefs signed by astronauts John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, James Lovell, Frank Borman, William Anders, Wally Schirra, and James McDivitt; actors and entertainers Mary Pickford, Jane Withers, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Grace de Monaco, and Richard Chamberlain; Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird, Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower, Harry S. and Bess Truman, Hubert and Muriel Humphrey, Everett Dirksen, and Eugene McCarthy; religious leaders Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale; authors Zane Grey, Pearl Buck, Edgar Guest; famous physicians Jonas Salk and Charles W. Mayo and Christian Barnard, the first transplant patient; and from the world of music, Robert Merrill, Herb Alpert, and Meredith Willson. The total collection was valued at nearly $3,000.

I would have LOVED TO BUY THEM ALL! But I did not have much to spare. These three hankies were a steal at half their appraised value.

The collector, Mildred Dorothy Maulding, was born February 6, 1897 to Charles Sturman and Minnie Alice. She married Charles DeWitt Ashby and they had two children, Charles DeWitt and Billy Dee. On June 11, 1949, Mildred married Emory Maulding.

Mildred died at age 80 in 1977. Her obituary shows she was born in Shawneetown and was buried in McLeansboro, that she was a member of the Baptist church, Eastern Star, and White Shrine.

I got in touch with the presidential museums for each First Lady and have arranged to donate the handkerchiefs to them.

I also got in touch with the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. I want to donate a rare campaign souvenir handkerchief to them, sold on eBay as a 'circus elephant' for a dollar or so. It is silk, with a Republican elephant wearing a blanket with a bit 'H' for Hoover and a 'C' for his VP Curtis.

So, a trip to the post office is also in my post-vaccination to-do list.

Next it is time to clear out some quilts. I have a double closet and a linen closet filled with them...