More Artifacts From a Journalist's Life: Correspondence

While I'm away from the Internet for a few days, I'm sharing a few glimpses of the letters, telegrams, photos and other materials from Melville Jacoby's brief but fascinating life. If you like these and would like to see me complete a book telling Mel's fantastic true story, please read more about Mel and make a contribution today. Though Mel spent years away from his home and family in Los Angeles, California, he was a dedicated correspondent. He wrote to his mother, Elza, and stepfather, Manfred, regularly, and also to other relatives, friends, and coworkers. Mel's letters were reflective, touchingly honest, incredibly detailed, and often quite humorous. Later, in my book about Mel's life, as well as in future blog posts, I'll quote extensively from these letters to give you more of a direct sense of what Mel wrote and how he thought. For now, I thought I'd offer a glimpse of how these letters, their envelopes, even something as simple as their return addresses invokes nostalgia for an earlier era.

Here are some of those envelopes, letterheads, and signatures from Mel's travels around the world:

When Mel went to Lingnan University as an exchange student from Stanford University, he got there by way of an around-the-world steamship journey. Like hotels, many of the ships that transported Mel had their own stationery. This envelope from the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation company was addressed to Mel's mother and stepfather in Bel Air.

For a time, Mel worked for the Republic of China's Ministry of Information. This position put him in contact with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek and his wife, Soong Mei-Ling, also known as Madame Chiang. He interviewed each of them and even penned a profile of Madame Chiang for the San Francisco Chronicle. Later Mel's wife Annalee worked for Madame Chiang's United China Relief. When the couple wed, the Chiangs sent them many unique gifts on behalf of the Chinese nation, all of which were later destroyed by Japanese bombing raids on the Philippines. This is a closeup of the letterhead Madame Chiang used to write Mel a note regarding his interview of her for the Chronicle. Note the Stanford letterhead of the letter in the file beneath this visible through the nearly transparent letterhead of this paper.  Many of the documents I'm using as sources for this project are incredibly fragile. A portion of your donations will go to making sure all these historic materials are properly preserved and protect.

Mel was often lighthearted in his letters home. Though born to one of Los Angeles's first Jewish families, Mel became a Christian Scientist when his mother adopted the religion after the death of her first husband and Mel's father, also named Melville. Their devotion did not curtail Mel's sense of humor.

In the summer of 1937, after Mel finished his semester as an exchange student at Lingnan University, he spent time travelling through Japan. There, he was tailed by Japanese police and regularly witnessed the growing nationalist fervor in that country during the first stages of what became World War II. This return address was on the back of one of the letters Mel sent home from Japan.

Check back on Monday for another set of artifacts from Melville Jacoby's amazing life.  If  you missed the first installment of this series, check it out here. Meanwhile, don't forget to donate.