Julia Talledge in The Black Hills with her Oliver No 9 Typewriter

Further to my post yesterday, today I received from Laurie Cox of the Stroppel Hotel and Mineral Baths in Midland, South Dakota, these images of Julia Talledge at her Oliver No 9 typewriter. It was yet another happy consequence of family members getting in touch with me following an ozTypewriter post. In this case, it was a post titled "Calamity-less Julia, Her Typewriter and The Black Hills of Dakota" which was published on February 4 last year. The post included a newspaper image showing Julia at the Wilge Nursing Home in Mitchell, 175 miles east of her beloved Midland. She died there in June 1978, aged 95. In the clipping, she looked just like she does here, so these photos may have been taken at late as 1975.

In July last year Julia's great-niece by marriage, Jinny Talledge, commented on the post. A few days later, another great niece, Rhonda Talledge Mataczynski, got in touch to say, "Aunt Julia was my father’s aunt and a fun lady to visit. I remember her being a tall imposing woman with a very sharp wit. We often took her brothers - my grandfather Ben and brother Roy - out to Midland to see her. My father was a pastor and history teacher and was a favourite of hers. Thank you for all this info. Some of it I remember. I know that my father was extremely proud of his Aunt Julia and they corresponded right up to her death."

Last month Laurie Cox wrote "Thank you for this posting. My husband and I own the Stroppel Hotel and Mineral Baths in Midland, SD. I am working on the application to put the hotel on the national registry. Julia Talledge has repeatedly come up. I had a niece of Julia's come visit the hotel. At that time I did not have the information to know how influential and how strong of a woman that Julia Talledge was. I wish I had that personal visit back with her niece. I plan to do themed historical rooms here in the hotel and you can bet that Julia Talledge will be on the list of Midland's most influential people." Laurie then offered to send me pictures of Julia’s typewriter from an exhibit in the Midland Museum.

In 1907 the adventurous Julia settled in a shack at Mitchell Creek outside Midland, a small rural town in the south-eastern corner of Haakon County. The Oliver No 9 was first made in 1915.

For 'KL': The Boy With The Green Hair

Of the 2937 posts on this blog, one that I am most proud of was published on March 13, 2019, under the heading, “Betsy Beaton, The Boy With Green Hair and the Underwood 6 Typewriter”. There wasn’t a lot in it about typewriters, but it took many, many hours of research to identify the lady in the photo with the Underwood standard – and her achievements. The end result was satisfying to say the least. The post opened, “On the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web, I went through an exhaustive exercise of exploring the Internet’s many failings, its virtues and the boundless opportunities it offers.” My old friend Bill MacLane commented, “Congratulations on another fine investigative report on someone new to me. I'm always amazed at how good you are at finding information on relatively unknown (at least to me) people and such detail you are able to post.”

Earlier this year I had cause to comment on Instagram and Facebook, “One of the best things about [blogging] is making contact, through comments, with descendants of people who have featured in past posts … [including] the grand-daughter of Betsy Beaton, who wrote 'The Boy With the Green Hair' … There was almost nothing online about Betsy Beaton until I researched her life story, and now I notice the IMDb, which previously had no details, has updated its entry on Betsy using info from ozTypewriter - without, of course, any acknowledgement. But, then, that goes for images I see almost daily on Instagram. I suppose I should be glad to be of service!”

This was in response to a message on Instagram from Susan Forman, saying, "Hello Robert, I cannot thank you enough for your wonderful piece entitled, 'Betsy Beaton, The Boy With Green Hair and the Underwood 6 Typewriter'. If possible, I would love to have your email address. 'Wendy', Betsy's daughter, is my mother, technically mother-in-law, but we are very close and this article has meant the world to her. She too, would love to contact you." Needless to say, I've heard no more.

But this week I received another comment on the Betsy Beaton post. “KL” wrote, “This is incredible! Your post was exactly what I'd been searching for regarding the life of Betsy Beaton. I was wondering ... do you know where I can get a copy of her short story, ‘The Boy with Green Hair’? I was trying to locate it online with no luck. I see you have an excerpt here. I'd really like to read it all. I just found a copy of ‘Another Man's Shoes’ online and I'm tempted to buy it. I'm curious to read it as well.” The line I liked best was, "Thanks for taking the time to recognize a woman writer who was obviously undervalued at the time (and still is)."

Well, for that “KL”, here it is in full: