A Leap Year Proposal I Send by Mail

We tend to think of peo­ple whose writ­ings date from the ear­ly 1900s as “old” folks–ossified cit­i­zens of Danville who were “set in their ways” and as per­son­able, humor­ous and emo­tion­al as a mar­ble stat­ue that we touched as a child. Fre­quent­ly, in the course the course of clas­si­fy­ing fam­i­ly doc­u­ments for the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety, I come across one that offers insight that shows that they were not much dif­fer­ent that teenagers are today.  Had I read only Flo­rence Johnson’s 1907  let­ters to Her­bert Stan­ton (her hus­band only a year lat­er) I would been con­firmed in a strait­laced con­trol­ling stereo­type of an all-know­ing spouse-to-be. In the fol­low­ing let­ter, Her­bert was con­fined to home with mumps.

March 14, ‘07
My dear Herbert:
I have just been down street and sent a diet card and sent you a diet card just  to remind you that you were dieting…Now don’t eat too much or the wrong things.
With Love- Florence

Of course, I found that I was wrong. The let­ter enti­tled “Leap Year Pro­pos­al 1904” had no enve­lope and bore no address or name of sender. Only hand­writ­ing com­par­i­son revealed the writer. Def­i­nite­ly Flo­rence. Repro­duced below, it shows a fun-lov­ing, teas­ing woman, full of life and spir­it, which no man could light­ly refuse.

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The his­to­ri­an in me fades. Though I have no proof, the roman­tic in me spec­u­lates young Her­bert removed the rope and told Flo­rence that his love wasn’t dead as the red bow’s return would have sig­ni­fied. Instead, his love would grow and flour­ish in Danville, his home with his beloved Florence.

A Leap Year Pro­pos­al 1904, transcribed

A Leap Year Pro­pos­al I send by mail
And hope you will guess from whom it hails [sic]
And send back the bow you think is accepted
And know with best wish­es that it is accepted
If you want to be my fellow
Send me back my bow of Yellow
If for me your love is true
Send me back my bow of Blue
If you want me for your wife
Send me back my bow of white
If of me you some­times think
Send me back me bow of Pink
If of me you some­times dream
Send me back my bow of Green
If you wish me to elope
Send me back my Hellitrope
If for me your love is dead
Send me back my bow of Red
If for me there is no hope
Send me back my bow of Rope
If the writ­ers name you guess
Send the bow to her Address