Flivverin' With You

On February 14, 1924, early in the five-year courtship of Ken Slifer and Caryl Dutton, Ken created a Valentine that read, "I'd rather be jes' flivverin' with you than ridin' in a Rolls-Royce with anyone else." His precise drawing of a classy 1924 Rolls-Royce is the card's centerpiece. A "flivver" was any ordinary car similar to his family's assembly-line Model T Ford, "Lizzie." Ken and Caryl, then both 18, were students at Bucknell University, in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. From the beginning of their courtship, Ken and Caryl frequently exchanged notes and letters. Eventually, they were writing every day. Most of their letters were sent back and forth between Ken in Woodbury, New Jersey, and Caryl in Buffalo, New York, but the young lovers also wrote faithfully from anywhere they might be traveling.

Excerpts from hundreds of these love letters, illustrated by Ken's beautifully painted envelopes, create a fascinating memoir and rear-view mirror glimpse into the nature of life and love, as experienced by two extraordinary young people, in the 1920s. By 1928, Ken had been working in advertising for two years and finally had boosted his weekly paycheck to $40, enough for the young lovers to wed. With the marriage of Ken and Caryl, their courtship letters came to an end, but the love they shared continued undiminished for 63 years, until Caryl's death in 1991.