Go Granny, go Granny, go Granny, go!!

[DFW]

I was visiting my brother earlier this week in Washington, and he showed me something from the family archives that I didn't even know we still had. My paternal grandmother was very involved in politics, and this is a letter she had written trying to raise funds for the first (and successful!) race of Hubert Humphrey for the U.S. Senate in 1948.

We "Libbruls" have been at it for longer than some of us realize. This is a fight we inherited, not one we invented:

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[FSogol]

1. My grandparents were heavily involved in Democratic politics too, going back to the FDR/Truman days.

We have boxes of similar stuff and I have a top notch collection of campaign buttons thanks to them.

[DFW]

2. There are some of us who learned the easy way

My hat goes off to those who grew up in reactionary households and had to take the long way around to find their way here.

By the way, if you have some obscure campaign buttons, you should ask HA.com (people in Dallas who have a department that knows this stuff) if any of them are rare and/valuable, and if so, keep them in a safe place.

I wish I had kept all the buttons I saw at my first convention (Los Angeles, 1960), but I was 8 years old. My dad had me go up to HHH at a reception there (remember, his mom had been a friend of Humphrey since the 1940s), and told me to say "hope you get the nomination!" Being all of eight, I had no idea what I was being asked to say, and had to ask my dad "what's a nomination?"

[FSogol]

3. I have many of them displayed in shadow boxes in my office.

I also have a tie clasp and cuffs links that JFK gave my grandfather. My favorite piece is a gold donkey tie pin from the Truman era.

[DFW]

4. Very cool stuff!

Most of what I have are autographs and photos. When I was 11, my dad asked Pierre Salinger to get JFK to autograph a photo of himself and make it out to me personally. It's a good thing he didn't wait until a year later. That was in 1963.

[jwirr]

8. I have one of those "Re-elect the Dike Bomber" ones laying around here somewhere but it is in poor

condition now. Lots of bumper stickers.

[JNelson6563]

5. What an awesome piece of family history DFW!

What a treasure!

Julie

[DFW]

10. She was not shy with her views

Legendary Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia once canned her in the middle of World War II because as his labor affairs something or other, she was getting a little too defensive of workers' rights for Hizzoner's tastes (or maybe budget--I wasn't around at the time).

Her husband, my grandfather, was originally from South Carolina, and somewhat more laid back. She, however, was very opinionated and as in-yer-face (in her soft-spoken way) as anyone.

[JNelson6563]

12. She sounds splendid!

[DFW]

16. She was quite a character

She took her grandchildren to Europe with her, one by one, when they got to their late teens to introduce them to some "culture." She died before I got there, so I missed out. She refused to go to Spain because it was still under Fascist control (Franco). I did spend a few days with her at her place in New York when I was 13 or so, and she introduced me to a few museums and my first movie in as foreign language, which was very eye-opening for me. At age 13, I thought it was just an action-adventure film (Belmondo's "L'Homme de Rio,&quot and totally missed all the humor in it (except for the car color: pink with green stars) until I saw it again years later.

[riverwalker]

6. my grandma

born in Norway, wanted to be buried near Hubert Humphrey, it was her last wish. She is in the same cemetery as him in Minneapolis.

[DFW]

7. He is still considered an icon in Minnesota

And rightfully so.

[dragonlady]

22. The first vote I ever cast

was for Humphrey when he went back to the Senate after being vice president.

[DFW]

26. My first vote was one year later (1971)

But it was in Philadelphia, where I went to college, and it was for a Republican (!!!!!).

It was for mayor of Philadelphia, and the Democrats had nominated (to our eternal shame) the corrupt (and not especially bright) police commissioner, Frank Rizzo. The Republicans nominated a soft-spoken professorial guy named Thatcher Longstreth. They had one TV debate where the buffoon Rizzo asked Longstreth why he had once referred to Rizzo as a buffoon (or whatever Longstreth had called him)? Longstreth's immediate answer was, "well, if the shoe fits, Commissioner....." My two roommates and I were howling, and decided this guy gets our vote even if he IS a Republican. Rizzo did us all a favor soon after winning the election, and switched to the Republican Party, which was far more suited to him, especially with Nixon in office. Later, after having a hard time explaining how he was building a $400,000 house on a $40,000 salary, he maintained a somewhat lower profile until his unmourned demise a few years later.

[catbyte]

9. That's an awesome letter. Speaking of old political stuff, I found my old "Nixon Eats Grapes" UFW

button the other day, LOL. Ah, good times...

[DFW]

11. Grapes?

We used to have a shorter word for what Nixon ate.....

[catbyte]

13. LOL. It was during the whole boycott of non-union produce that Cesar Chavez organized

And table grapes were the worst offenders, or am I telling you something you already know?

[DFW]

14. I was around in those days

Mostly on the East Coast, but we were all following the UFW dispute closely.

[geardaddy]

15. Awesome find!

My mom has a picture of her in her hospital robe standing next to HHH (when he was VP) on the day I was born. His granddaughter was born the same day at that hospital.

[DFW]

17. That's pretty impressive too!

HHH got me a job as a temporary Senate Page summer replacement when I was 15, and I used to see him on the Senate floor and say hi every now and then.

[geardaddy]

19. Cool!

[politicaljunkie41910]

18. What a piece of history? That's 10 years before I was born.

I'm thinking that this letter was probably not targeted towards the 47 percenters. $25 would have probably made a house payment back then.

How Much things cost in 1948
Yearly Inflation U.S.A. 7.74%
Average Cost of new house $7,700.00 Average wages per year $2,950.00 Cost of a gallon of Gas 16 cents Average Cost of a new car $1,250.00 Loaf of Bread 14 cents LB of Hamburger Meat 45 cents Science and Mechanics Magazine 20 cents Movie Ticket 60 Cents

Source: http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1948.html

[DFW]

20. It wasn't targeted to any group at all. It was targeted to the guy she wrote it to.

She obviously thought he could spare something, and she said she would be happy to get even $5.

[politicaljunkie41910]

21. I wasn't being critical. In fact I was fascinated seeing it, so thanks for sharing it.

I was joking about Romney's 47%. As I stated this was 10 years before I was born and I can still recall from my childhood, the relative value of a dollar since we had so few of them.

[DFW]

23. OK, I get it now.

I must be getting too used to people who have more than a dime in their pockets being dissed as oligarchs these days.

I know all about the value of a buck back then. Another of her grandchildren, my cousin, still grumbles to this day. Among her many pursuits, my grandmother used to support living artists and buy their works if she liked them. She sometimes splurged for hundreds of dollars at a time, which was real money back then. One guy from whom she bought a couple of bronze sculptures was a Ticinese Swiss named Alberto Giacometti. My cousin wanted to keep a piece from her collection in the family: a bust Giacometti had made of his brother Diego. Six casts were made of it. But Giacometti died a year before my grandmother did, and his work had shot up in price. Because of inheritance tax, my cousin's parents would have had to pay $8000 inheritance tax (half the assessed value of $16,000) to keep it in their family, and in 1966 that was just too big a chunk of change for them to handle. The sculpture was then auctioned off in 1967 in New York for $25,000. That very same sculpture, with provenance listed as being in the collection of my grandmother, came up for auction again close to ten years ago. It brought $4 MILLION. I think my cousin needed medical attention when he found out (j/k, I have no idea).

As a comparison, I had always liked an abstract painting of blue and purple squares and rectangles by an artist named Ad Reinhardt. My grandmother had bought it from a gallery in Paris for $600 in 1963, even though Reinhardt was from New York. But Reinhardt was still alive when she died, so his work hadn't shot up in value when her estate was assessed. My parents managed to save that painting for me, and it only cost them a few hundred bucks, which they could swing. As a comparison, it cost me $20,000 in inheritance taxes to keep it when the last of my parents died. But, like my parents in 1966, I could swing it, and I wasn't yet ready to part with it.

[dragonlady]

24. He certainly could spare something!

This former governor of New York and future U.S. senator had been a partner in the Lehman Brothers investment banking firm and lived on Park Avenue.

[DFW]

27. I never looked him up. He was one of THOSE Lehmans?

I guess he could have spared something! I have clue as to whether he did or not. I doubt too many of them would be contributing to Democrats these days.

I don't know how high up Park Avenue that is. I had a grandfather with a Park Avenue address for a while, but it was waaaay uptown, and when visiting him as kids, we were told to watch ourselves after dark (I'm talking 1960s).

[dragonlady]

32. Yes, one of those Lehmans

The generation after the founders (see Wikipedia). The apartment building is at E. 75th Street.

[dembotoz]

25. sometimes when i am feeling all upity and liberal, i look at my 93 year old mom

can not hold a candle to her

seems we were know as THAT part of the family.

thank you for posting the letter and giving me a reason to pay a bit of tribute to my mom

[DFW]

28. It's so easy to look at "elderly" people and not realize that they were the "us" of their day

My grandmother smoked, spoke softly, dressed well, and put on an air of elegance that was downright foreign to me. And yet, she was there in the political trenches fighting the same fights we are today, and with the tenacity of a badger defending her young.

[NBachers]

29. I think this same fight, in it's own ways and context, has been going on as long as humanity.

There's something bigger here that we don't see with our limited vision. I can't really articulate what it is, in it's entire breadth and scope.

Your grandmother sounds like quite a lady. Thanks for sharing her with us; thanks for everything you share here.

[DFW]

30. In the big scope of things, you're probably right

There have probably always been three groups: 1.) the have nots/the controlled, 2.) the haves willing to share/the could control but won't, and 3.) the haves unwilling to share/control freaks.

I think my grandmother, whatever she may have started out as, ended up squarely in category 2.

[11 Bravo]

31. I grew up listening to Jan and Dean and now I have this song stuck in my head.

(And I don't mind it one bit!)

[dipsydoodle]

34. I've still got the original vinyl album

[DFW]

35. So did I!

You didn't have to be from Southern California to have that song stuck in your head.

And to anyone who thinks 60s rock is simple stuff, just TRY to do those harmonies live.

[WillyT]

33. K & R !!!