Over 150 manuscript letters and cards dating from 1903-1950's, (with the majority from 1909-1911) and a sorority scrapbook plus other documents. Most of the letters were written by Warren Burns (Marietta, Ohio) to Martha Curtis (Delaware, Ohio), both of whom were attending Ohio Wesleyan University (Delaware, O.) in 1909. Most of his letters are inked manuscript written on three full letter sheets, and others are over 10 pages in length, so quite long letters in general and very well written in a good legible hand. This archive offers a glimpse into an America long gone, a time of traveling theatrical groups and circus's, when life was simpler and the automobile was just beginning to be seen in rural parts of America. A time when travel was by river or more often by train, even when going to the next town down the road. Both the Burns & Curtis families are from the upper middle class, maybe even the lower upper class. Family history of attending college, heavily involved in all types of business and owners of property/real estate in several areas, including a vacation home on a lake in Michigan. Burns was a member of the local Country Club in Marietta and many other civic, religious and fraternal organizations. Warren’s father died in 1909 and he is running the family oil business. His family also owner a coal and timber farm near Butler, Pa. He was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity, while Martha was a member of the Kappa Psi sorority. This oil company was called "The Burns Oil Co.", headquartered in Marietta. One of his leases was in Chester Hill, Morgan Co., Ohio. While there are a number of letters pre-dating 1910, most of those are from 1909 and deal with the death of Warren's father, Henry. The bulk of the archive begins in 1910 with letters from Warren to Martha Curtis (his future wife). In two letters he tells Martha about a flood in Marietta in March of 1910, during which much of the business district was underwater (note: the archive includes several photo of this flood that Warren talked about in his letter). Of this flood he writes This is a dirty looking place I can tell you. Mud, boxes and trash of all kinds on the streets and lawns and then to make it worse one of the refineries here let a tank of oil get away from them and of course all that oil got all over the outside of the houses and inside too. When the water when down, of course, the oil was all over the lawns and sidewalks. Fortunately that all happened in West Marietta, so that it don't bother us over here.’ There is a lot of stuff about sports, including major league baseball including him telling her that his friend from OWU, Lefty Webb had just signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates as a pitcher in 1910 (Cleon Earl Webb) and was with the team at their training quarters in West Baden. Webb played in Major League only 1 year, 1910. Also mentions Clifton Garfield Curtis of Delaware who was pitching for the "Boston National League Club", which was the Doves (formerly Beaneaters; forerunner of Braves). He later played for the following teams; Brookline Superbas; Dodgers; Phillies; Boston Rustlers (Formerly Doves). Curtis played in Major League from 1909-1913. There is a lot more about baseball in these letters, some on little known minor league teams in the western N.Y. area and elsewhere, also a lot on football, mainly college. Warren writes of his oil business to Martha often. In one letter he wrote ‘I went to the leases and made a thorough inspection of them and located a well or at least I hope it will come in a well when it is drilled. It is a good deal like betting on a ball game or a horse race. One can’t tell whether he has won or not until the race is over and so it is with drilling a well. One cannot tell where the oil is until the drill reveals it. Of course a person can guess where it might be and if he has the confidence in his guess to be willing to spend his money he will surely find out whether he guessed correctly or not.’ Marietta must have had a couple of theaters that showed movies (referred to in these letters as Nickelodeons) and plays as Warren is always telling Martha of something he just saw. On March 3, 1910 Warren writes her that the ‘Yesterday was Circus day in Marietta and continues with Forepaugh and Sells Bros. was the attraction and it drew a good sized crowd at both performances. The show arrived here Sunday morning and I wish you might have seen the crowd standing around watching it unload. It surely was a sight. Then when they had everything unloaded and transferred to the circus grounds the crowd all followed and assisted by their presence in erecting the tents, feeding the horses and preparing the meals¦I went to the circus yesterday twice. Isn't that the limit. Howard and I went in the afternoon to the side show and all¦I guess I had my fill of circuses for once in my life. It really is a very good circus though and with some of the prettiest horses I ever saw. On Sunday afternoon one of their finest horses died and two of their men were seriously injured. One of them fell from the top of one of their high wagons and alighted on his head on the pavement fracturing his skull at the base of the brain. The paper stated last evening that he could not possibly live. The other fellow was not so seriously injured. The elephant, of which he was the keeper, became enraged at him and picked him up with his trunk and slammed on the ground breaking three of his ribs and injuring his back. I understand he will recover all right. The elephant that hurt him is the mother of the one that caused the stampede in Danville, Ill. a week or two ago.’ A letter dated May 26, 1910 tells of his trip to view Halley’s Comet with a friend and two young ladies taking a ride into the country on a dark night. He was not impressed with comet watching. In June of 1910 their budding romance appears to be hitting a few snags, which given the number of young ladies Warren tells Martha he goes on dates with is not at all surprising. March 7 1910 mentions hearing a lecture by Lincoln McConnell on ‘Colored Folk’ and writes of Senator Tillman of S.C. a noted racist of the time. He mentions opera in Columbus with Louis Tetrazzini, internationally known Italian coloratura soprano. He attended a play called ‘The City’ starring Clyde Fitch, and went to see the Whitney Bros. Quartet. During Aug. of 1910 the Ohio National Guard has an encampment at Marietta and he was able to see many of his old college friends from OWU. They had war games at this encampment and one of his friends told him that it was likely that they would be sent to Columbus because of the ‘Street Car Strike’. The letter where Warren tells Martha about is purchasing a new automobile deserves quoting in part: ‘Well Martha, I bought my auto and I surely am crazy about it. I bought it a week ago last Monday and a week ago Wednesday my cousin and her husband and another cousin, her admirer and myself started from Mannington and when we were just 16 miles out of Mannington it began to rain and from that time on for about 60 miles we had the worst roads you ever saw. I was soaking wet from about noon on Wednesday until 9:30 that night and muddy. Gee! I was a sight. It rained so hard that we stopped at a little town about 1:30 P.M. until 6 when it stopped and we started on. There was a hill just around the corner from this little town and they had been working the roads and had about 2 feet of loose dirt on it and then it had been raining hard all afternoon on it, so when we started out at six o’clock the whole town turned out to see us get stuck, but the car went thru and up the hill after three trials, and then we all yelled at the crowd down the hill and gave them the hee haw. We drove about ten miles over that kind of roads after dark and a number of times the other man and I had to get out and hold the car from sliding over the bank into the creek the roads were so muddy and narrow. We drove into a little town called Shirley W. Va. where we found a nice hotel. It was about 8:30 in the evening and after we had a good supper we all felt somewhat better. Take it from me we were thankful to get to that town. It surely looked good. We retired about 9:30 and about midnight it began to rain again and it simply poured from that time until daylight, but just as soon as we could get our breakfast and take a look over the car to see that nothing was broken we started on and ram to 1½ miles of Middlebourne W. Va. where we ran out of gasoline and Howard and I walked into town and carried enough out to run on in on. The next place we hit after Middlebourne was Sisterville and there we crossed the river into Ohio and them we struck good roads and for 36 miles if we did not make time wow. We landed in Marietta about 5 o’clock Thursday evening and I wish you could have seen us. I started out with a nice grey suit on and I wish you might have seen it when we drove into Marietta. I thought the car never would be good for anything, but it was all right the next day after it was washed and cleaned up. It did not appear to hurt it a particle. No more trips thru West Va. for mine particularly if it looks as if it might rain. I did not drive any of the way coming over, but one of the men from the garage took me out on Friday afternoon and gave me a lesson or two and so I was driving that evening and when I was thru I thought I could drive into the garage, so I started in and could not stop her so I ploughed right into another car and smashed my gas lights all to pieces and the lights on the other car too. It surely made me sore besides. It scared me quite a little bit but I soon got over it. But I can drive her all right now and do not feel the least bit afraid although it keeps me busy. My car is quite a powerful one and will make 50 miles an hour on the road. It is an Oakland and has a horse power of 40. The same people make the Oakland that make the Oldsmobile. Well that’s enough of autos for now.’ Given the number of passengers he had in his car (5) it is likely that he purchased an Oakland model 25 Touring Car, which was a five passenger convertible vehicle, with front windscreen and no side windows or open sides, which would account for his being soaked and mud covered. In his letter of Oct. 31st, 1910 he has given Martha his fraternity pin, which is in essences a proposal of marriage in that age. Shortly after this letter she has written him expressing reservations about wearing his pin, as it would limit her ability to date others thus limiting her social activities while she is still in college at OWU, but it would appear that she acquiesced in the end as there is a letter dated Nov. 22, 1910 from a man in Lexington, Ky. Who is truly heart-broken over her accepting Warrens pin, signed G.E.G. and addressed to Martha in Delaware. One line in this letter is quite telling about Martha, it reads ‘When I think of the last time we were together & how we enjoyed ourselves, to say nothing of our unprecedented actions!!!’ While today we might interpret this as a hint at sexual intimacy, it is more likely just a reference to some passionate kissing. Interestingly after she has accepted Warren’s pin, he begins to address her in his letters as ‘My dear girl’, rather than ‘Dear Martha’, as was his norm previously. All of Warren’s male college friends are often referred to by nick-names such as ‘Tubbie’ or ‘Bucko’, to name just two used in these letters. Some of the phraseology of the period is interesting, such as ‘going around Robin Hood’s barn’ (going out of the way) or ‘rubber in’ (look at), and many others. In 1911 the tone of these letters changes and it becomes more of a love story than earlier. Early in 1910 Warren tells Martha that he has outgrown being ‘Crazy’ about any girl, but it would appear that he was wrong. The frequency of Martha’s letters to Warren also increases in 1911, as does the length of each with some being near 20 pages in length. The letters begin to get progressively more passionate, with a lot of playful banter back and forth, in between, giving each other the news of what is happening in Marietta and Delaware and beginning to plan their wedding and honeymoon. One typical example of Warren’s growing feelings towards Martha is from a letter dated Nov. 2, 1911 and reads: ‘My own daring sweetheart…How much I do love you and how much I do miss you dear. I am so glad that our separation is no longer than it is because each day increases my impatience to be with you always!’ The archive includes two copies of the wedding invitation for Warren & Martha’s wedding on Nov. 15, 1911. They were married at the Curtis home, in Delaware. This large family home (2700 sq. ft.), built in 1910 sits on a large corner lot is still standing and valued at circa $260,000 today (265 W. Lincoln Ave.). The archive also includes the guest book from the wedding. Also included are check stubs from 1940-53, many photographs and documents too numerous to mention. The scrapbook that accompanies this archive was kept by Martha while in high school and college in Delaware from 1904-1911 and has some very interesting items, particularly dealing with OWU sorority life; such as a heavy brown paper shopping bag from her pledge period at her college sorority with written instructions for her to follow during one of her pledge days. It is decorated with stamped skull & cross-bones and is quite amusing. There are also many photographs of outings, including some with Warren and others, programs & invitations for dances, plays, choral performances, theatrical performances and much more. This archive has a wealth of details about life in Marietta & Delaware, Ohio just before the First World War, as well as a lot of information about Parkersburg, W.V. and life among the upper class during this period of American history. Approx. 30% of the letters in this archive were read during the cataloging of this group, and none of the post 1911 letters have been read, so undoubtable there is much more to be learned.

Letters with normal folds as mailed, nearly all with covers, scrap book covers are quite worn, but contents are fine, over all condition is Fine.