May 23, 2013 - Sale 2316

Sale 2316 - Lot 38

Price Realized: $ 3,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
LOVE LETTER MENTIONS HISTORIC MEETING EDISON, THOMAS A. Autograph Letter Signed, "TAE," to his wife [Mina] ("Darling Billy"), 9 pages, small 8vo, personal stationery, written on three sheets with two being folded. Llewellyn Park, "Sunday" [circa August 1896]

Additional Details

". . . I went to the meeting of the Edison Illuminating Co's at Oriental Hotel the day after you left; Mr. Gilmore went with me; . . .
"It is very lonesome here every night. I have not yet done any night work on account of the heat, but came home at 6 pm read my papers eat supper and go to bed at 10:30 @ 11 and get up about 6:30 to 7:30. Every night it get[s] a little bit more lonesome without you darling Billy so I am going to fight the feeling off by working a little nights . . . . I got a telegram the other night from your father asking me to use my influence to have the Vitascope agent carry out his agreement about exhibiting . . . . I teleg'hd impossible-- You know we sell them outright and have no agents or control over the parties who purchase them.
"We have tested the Bricker at Ogden . . . it worked perfect made 13,000 bricks without a miss . . . . Now . . . all will work and we are pushing things to completion. . . .
"Well Darling Billy I must stop as it's 11:30 Sunday night with the same love, kisses, unchanged and unchangeable I am still the lover of the growler, stronger and deeper as the years roll on. Love to all, Kisses for babies & Tidal Kiss for yourself, your loving hubby."
The 17th convention of the Association of Edison Illuminating Companies took place at Coney Island's Oriental Hotel on August 11-13, 1896. In attendance was Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit's chief engineer, Henry Ford, who met Edison for the first time there. In his Edison as I Know Him, Ford quotes Edison's reply when Ford introduced his idea to him during that first encounter: "Your car is self-contained—carries its own power plant—
no fire, no boiler, no smoke and no steam. You have the thing. Keep at it."