I remember the 444 days that American Embassy personnel were held hostage by student revolutionaries in Tehran, Iran, in 1979-1981.  I remember little things about that episode: We had two Iranian students in my Russian class at BYU, one of whose brothers had a role in the embassy takeover; I remember Reza’s concern about how we would react to that. I remember that Canadian diplomats smuggled six Americans out of Iran after hiding them in Canadian apartments there for some time – thank you, Canada. The odd thing I remember most about that part of the affair is that when the Canadians prepared the Americans to come out of hiding and walk boldly through the Tehran airport, they made the effort to construct relevant “pocket litter” – the odds and ends of dry cleaning receipts and movie ticket stubs and gum wrappers that you don’t even notice accumulating in your wallet or purse or pockets, but the absence of which signals to trained observers that something isn’t right.

Sometimes there is historical significance in the littlest things – the “pocket litter” of history. Or at least it feels significant. It fills in the background and makes history “look right.”

One of the most trivial artifacts of documentary history, at least in the 20th century, is the clerical code at the bottom of most typed correspondence. If you’ve worked as or with secretaries, you’ve seen such a code typed a line or two below the letter’s signature: MEB/ap is what I typed when I worked as Michael E. B—’s secretary. Long ago when my mother worked as secretary to Roscoe W. Eardley of the Church Welfare Department, her code was RWE:b – and that little “b” is how my mother, named Bernice, picked up her lifelong nickname of “Bee.” The image to the right indicates a letter dictated by David O. McKay and prepared by his long-time secretary Clare Middlemiss.

I see those initials at the bottom of correspondence I read in pursuit of Church history. Those initials are so trivial that I confess I don’t bother to include them in my transcriptions – perhaps an error on my part, but my standard practice, anyway. When I see a 1938 letter signed by Heber J. Grant, with the code G-A below it, I know that President Grant dictated the letter, and that Joseph Anderson, the First President’s secretary, typed the letter. When I see the same signature but the code A, I know that Joseph Anderson drafted the letter himself for the president’s signature. C:A:B is a commonly seen code from the 1940s: – J. Reuben Clark dictated the letter; Joseph Anderson made a hasty transcription of his shorthand outlines; and some typist with the initial “B” (I don’t know who that was) prepared the polished final draft for signature. So, what can you decipher about the initials to the left?

Does it mean much? Maybe not, but it gives me a glimpse into the workings of offices in the past, and I begin to feel at home and more confident in my understanding of the day-to-day activity the more I understand even these tiny details.

Sometimes those initials can have a little more significance: Let’s say that all three members of the First Presidency, or multiple members of the Presiding Bishopric, or the whole Relief Society Board sign a letter. All the signers endorse its content, true, but that code tells me who dictated the letter, whose words those are, and sometimes that matters. Letters dictated by J. Reuben Clark, Jr. are blunt; those by Anthon H. Lund are gentle; those by Francis M. Lyman can be a little on the wordy side. Circular letters sent to local seventies’ quorums by the Presidency of the Seventy can have an entirely different flavor when dictated by B.H. Roberts than when dictated by J. Golden Kimball, regardless of which president(s) may sign the letter. If nothing else, matching words to man gives me a greater sense of a man’s personality.

Read enough letters, notice enough initials, and you get to know the staff at Church headquarters. “AW” was Arthur Winter, who handled mission finances in the mid-20th century and who sometimes told jokes in the letters he sent to financial clerks in missions around the world. CAC – C.A. Carlson – handled Church finances a generation before Arthur Winter came along. “H” was Harold G. Reynolds, personal secretary to the First Presidency, who can be found handling virtually any kind of business with any Church leader or local officer anywhere in the world; for a number of years, he handled travel arrangements for Church leaders and missionaries, and was the man to see if you hoped for a discount fare.

Sometimes those initials help me identify the writer of a document. In the days of carbon paper copies (before photocopying was available), when a letter was “written” by an office or department – say, the presidency of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association – rather than by an individual, there may be no name typed below the signature block. Depending on the era or the practice of a given office, a clerk might or might not handwrite the name of the signer on the carbon copy retained in the office files. Many times I have solved the puzzle of an unsigned carbon copy by looking at those initials – sometimes it’s obvious, and sometimes I have to scrutinize a list of officers printed in a relevant Church magazine, or the letterhead used by that organization at that era, in order to identify the letter writer.

Some initials are … memorable.  SOB? That’s a letter dictated by Samuel O. Bennion, president of the Central States Mission early in the 20th century, whose initials appear on a lot of correspondence having to do with Liahona: The Elder’s Journal.

I read a letter a couple of weeks ago, written to John A. Widtsoe and signed “Dick.” Who was Dick? I wondered. There was no letterhead, no real clue in the content of the letter, but whoever it was had clearly been a close personal friend of Elder Widtsoe’s. The initials of the writer were rle – ah! “Dick” was Richard L. Evans, who had been a missionary in England while Elder Widtsoe was president of the European Mission; the two were lifelong friends, and worked together to produce the Improvement Era for many years. I had had no idea that Elder Evans went by the nickname “Dick”; he could sign his letters casually, but those initials identified him formally.

It tickles me no end to see the code used in a 1938 letter signed by Louise Y. Robinson as General President of the Relief Society, Kate M. Barker as her counselor, and Julia A.F. Lund as general secretary: L/J – dictated by Louise, typed by Julia. No surnames, no formality, just the names the sisters called each other face to face.

So that’s some of the “pocket litter” of history, the meaningless? meaningful? details of routine.

Very truly yours,

/ap