Chat
|
Daily Search
|
My GenForum
|
Community Standards
|
Terms of Service
|
|
|
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060620/OPINION03/606200384
Neal Rubin:
Post office wants to return wedding memories to owner
Advertisement
GET FREE HEADLINES BY E-MAIL
The Detroit News
Former Detroit Mayor Louis Miriani, center, with Dolores Deziel, left, and Vera Miriani. See full image
The bride and her maids. See full image
Printer friendly version
Comment on this story
Send this story to a friend
Get Home Delivery
N o one at the Southfield post office can figure out where the cardboard box and the pictures came from, or how whoever carried them in could have left them behind.
It was obvious, though, that this was special -- even before it turned out to be connected to a former mayor of Detroit.
The box is a sturdy orange rectangle with stickers on the lid that say "Fragile." When postal workers opened it late last month, they found some brittle World War II-era newspaper clippings and a wedding album so old that the cover is yellowed and the photos are black-and-white.
"It looks like a beautiful wedding," says Anne Wolfe, who works in the Mailing Requirements and Claims Department at the postal center on West 11 Mile.
Elegant, even. The men are in tails, the bridesmaids luxurious taffeta, the bride a gown with lace accents and a train. The Mercury that whisked the couple from the ceremony seems to be about a '54.
Shannon LaBruyere, who handles communications for the postal district, says the Southfield staff didn't quite know what to do with the box. It wasn't stamped, so it didn't need to be treated as formally as mail. Technically, it was trash, but clearly, it wasn't. So she called me, and I went to see Anne Wolfe.
Among the items in her lost and found last week was a padded red beach bag with a map of the United States on the side. She sees cell phones, credit cards, wallets, jewelry and, once, a new laptop.
History, however, rarely appears. "I didn't want it to just go to the dead-letter office," Wolfe says. "These are someone's valuable memories."
But whose?
The clippings held clues. Most had some connection to Mrs. Louis Miriani of 8729 Marygrove. These were the days when women apparently didn't have first names, but they usually had headwear.
Here's Mrs. Miriani, in a hat with a bow, at a concert put on by small children at the St. Peter Claver Community House. Mrs. Miriani, in a hat with flowers, preparing for an annual spring tea.
In our files, I found photos of more hats in more places -- including her husband's inauguration.
Louis Miriani became mayor of Detroit in September 1957, after Albert Cobo died in office. Two months later, in the general election, Miriani won in a landslide. In 1961, heavily favored, he was defeated by a 33-year-old lawyer named Jerry Cavanagh.
Miriani died in 1987, four years after his wife, whose name was Vera. Among their children was a daughter, Dolores Deziel, who appears with her parents in our photo files and whose wedding album showed up mysteriously at the Southfield post office.
Who owns the album now remains to be seen. If it's yours, please call me. Wolfe would love to know it's safely home.
Neal Rubin appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at (313) 222-1874 or nrubin@detnews.com.
Notify Administrator about this message?
Followups:No followups yet |
| http://genforum.genealogy.com/deziel/messages/29.html | ||
 |
Link to GenForum Add Forum |
|