WW2 Love Letter from Hamilton Hotel
It’s December 31, 2014
WWII Love Letter excerpt from Hamilton Hotel November 1944
It was a great Christmas trip. Check out was 12 noon at the Harbor Court Hotel in the Financial District of San Francisco. The Harbor Court is in the historic red brick YMCA building across from the ferry docks. It has views of the Bay Bridge. There was one thing left to do in San Francisco. I wanted to go see the Alexander Hamilton Hotel where Morris sent Arline his last letter before shipping off to the South Pacific in WW2.
My taxi driver got tangled in one way streets. This caused just the right delay so that as I peered into the Hamilton’s front security door, a resident was on his way out. He was curious. “Can I help you?” “Yes!” I gave him the quick story. Tom was not only kind, but he’s also a real estate agent. The Hamilton is now condos. But the Art Deco style of the hotel is totally preserved. Boys shipping off in WW2 got a last taste of America in Art Deco style at The Hamilton. My tour included the ocean view deck and there’s a piano in the lobby. I wondered which room Morris had occupied when he wrote the letter. I looked up from the roof’s deck and saw a star in one window.
Hamilton Hotel Entrance Martha in San Francisco
Hamilton Hotel Lobby
Hamilton Hotel Lobby
Thank you Tom!
Balcony over Lobby
Hamilton Hotel
Art matches the style at the Art Deco Hamilton Hotel
Hamilton Hotel Courtyard Art Deco Fountain
Hamilton Hotel Ballroom area
Hamilton Hotel Elevators
Hamilton Hotel Fireplace
The Roof Deck has an Ocean View. A Star was Shining in One Window.
Christian Science at Bowdoin College
Young people impress me. I hope if I ever visit Bowdoin College that it will be the best the trip of my life.
Chai Brew in Bowdoin China Teacup
I spent two years traversing history to meet my parents in the 40s. It started with 300 love letters from my dad to my mother. Arline had a fall soon after she gave me the letters. I nursed her for two months over the 2012 winter holidays. Two years later I’m back on extended visit. My chai tea multi-cultural brew is delicious in old Bowdoin teacups.
Family history research dropped me at the door of Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), founder of Christian Science. It started when my eye caught a first edition of her CONCORDANCE to MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS at a thrift store.
CONCORDANCE to MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS by Mary Baker Eddy
In Miscellaneous Writings (1883-1896), in Easter Services, there’s a sermon by a “former member of the Congregational Church”, a Bowdoin Graduate named Rev. D.A.Easton. “He left his old church…because he was not satisfied with a man-like God, but wanted to become a God-like man.” What Easton found in Christian Science surprised him.
Google is like a concordance. I googled Bowdoin and Christian Science. I got: “Student Lecture Series Debuts with Talks on Christian Science and Squirrel Diabetes”. The 2013 article highlights “Food for Thought” lectures. The twice a month talks are presented as a fun study break “for students to talk about anything they want to”. The speaker on Christian Science, Alioto, refers to her faith as being in the category of Bowdoin “topics such as religion — ones that students tend to view as taboo or uncomfortable”. Her talk was titled “Go Away…I’m Healing”.
In other old news Bowdoin made headlines last year when it ousted a Christian Bible study group’s leaders, despite student protest. Chapel was mandatory at Bowdoin in Morris Densmore’s day, the 1940s. Important and serious talks were held there. The September Commencement of 1942 graduated sixteen “Accelerated Seniors” at Bowdoin. Three degrees were conferred in absentia for the men already in the service. That left only thirteen graduates in attendance. It was a small Commencement, first time in Bowdoin’s history the ceremony was moved to the chapel.
Critical thinking requires intelligence plus an open-mind. In an earlier blog I jotted about how WW2 was an attack on liberal arts and critical thinking. To understand Christian Science takes an open-mind. In Christian Science the Bible is explained in mystical intelligent context. C.S. is a good fit for Bowdoin.
At the Food for Talk debut students “flooded in”. No short thirst for knowledge there. The squirrel diabetes lecture was presented as comedy. But when Alioto shared about being a Christian Scientist, finally in her senior year, apparently sort of outing herself as a Christian to the community at large “Her anecdotes and reflections on life as a Christian Scientist on a college campus inspired a stream of questions from the audience, as well as a discussion about the presence of religion in the Bowdoin community.” Yea, a mid-course correction. She welcomed the “gifts” of intellectual curiosity.
Christian Science was no squirrel in 18th century New England. Here’s a link to a film about Mary Baker. I dismiss commentator views that C.S. was more applicable before modern medicine. In light of modern physics and my own experience as an RN and acupuncturist, C.S. Divine Mind fits better than ever our modern days. I ponder God. I sure am thankful for great minds like Mary’s, for her teachings, for my Bowdoin heritage and beautiful Bowdoin china.
Read MoreEaster Bunny Leaves Love Letter
Easter falls on the 1st Sunday following the 1st full moon after the spring equinox, between 3/22 and 4/25. Copy that?
I went to church with Arline last week. I used to go, and was once a Christian. I walked out of the church when a substitute minister started preaching against abortion from the pulpit. It was too much. But I loved the service last week, the organ, the choir, the people greeting each other saying “Peace be with you.”
In 1945, Easter was April 1st. This year it’s tomorrow, the 20th. I pulled one of my father’s letters from April 20th 1945. Morris had been stationed in the South Pacific 5 months. He was engaged to Arline. They did it in letters. He sent the news of their engagement to his parents in a telegram. Arline had been at his folks home for dinner. In the letter Mose asks, “What were your first feelings when they read the telegram?” Awesome! Then he details his future pay as a lieutenant.
Morris’s memorial service was April 1st, 1999. I remember him every April Fools Day. He had a dry sense of humor. He had a way with puns. At the memorial service his brother Henry said, “Morris was the last of the good guys.”
Read MoreFlying Fish at End of Rainbow
Love Letter excerpt by Morris to Arline November 1944, of awe and gratitude.
Love Letter 1940
End of the Rainbow
Diamond Ring – Practically Given Away!
Morris was in the South Pacific when an ad ran in LOVE romance magazine. Rationing had an effect on romance during WW2 and here we see one example, a fun one. HAREM Company (The House of Rings) did all right on the romance theme. They dealt Flashing Replica Diamond Rings. From the full ad, however, seems even better served were folks in the biz of selling real diamonds.
The House of Rings c. 1944 Flashing Replica Diamond
“LADIES! Have you ever longed to own a real diamond ring? Of course you have. But today, due to the war, diamond prices are soaring higher and higher. They are beyond the reach of most people. Yet you can naturally satisfy your desire for beautiful jewelry at a price you can easily afford…When package arrives pay postman $1.74 plus 26¢ postage charges.”
Read MoreA Fan of Professor Coffin
“A man should choose with careful eye the things to be remembered by.” ~ Robert P. Tristram Coffin
Strange Holiness
won Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 1936
…When Morris went to Bowdoin’s in 1942-43 (he returned and graduated after the war) his english professor was American poet, Robert Peter Tristram Coffin. On the evening of May 5, 1943 Morris writes Arline:
I have been sitting in the living room for more than two hours listening to him talk. He is really a remarkable man but he is a bit hard to follow. He was giving us some insights on the intellectual abilities of the medieval man. Then the conversation, or more appropriately monologue, shifted to religion. He gave us some amazing information on many religious sects such as the Shakers, Mormons…etc. It isn’t often you have the chance to talk firsthand with a Pulitzer Prize winner and Rhodes Scholar.
Read MoreCopyright Notice
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