After all the fuss, this post is probably not as funny as I intended it to be. Here it is, anyway.

Dorothy Mae McPherson was born in Colorado in 1901, and lived in Pueblo until the late 1930s, when she moved to the West Coast (sometimes in Washington; sometimes in California), where she passed away in 1972. She had an opportunity to travel in her young adulthood, to Europe and to Hawaii, at least. She had a short marriage to Louis Durling and raised a son named Edsel. Somewhere along the line she picked up the additional middle initial of “Y.” – I don’t know where that comes from; she doesn’t appear to have been married to a Mr. Y., nor does she appear to have a middle name in addition to Mae.

I have no reason to suspect she was LDS, and reason to assume she was not (she doesn’t appear in Family Search; she should appear there if she had a membership record, and if she had Mormon kin, surely some cousin or grandson or great aunt would have included her in their submitted records).

So why introduce you to her on Keepa?

Because she was a “feature writer” for the “daily newspaper,” according to her listing on the 1940 census … and boy, could she “feature write” for the Ogden Standard-Examiner in April and May, 1933! (She submitted a few similar features to California newspapers in 1932, but I’m at a loss to know what other feature writing she may have done elsewhere … but then, I never heard of her until about 6:00 this morning, when Grant Vaughn sent me the two clippings that started this search.)

So, as I was saying – she submitted features to the Ogden Standard-Examiner in the spring of 1933, presenting herself as “Doma” – her pseudonym perhaps a contraction of her given names: DOrothy MAe. That’s her picture at the top of this post … maybe; it could also be a fake picture, like the ones used for Ann Landers or “Dear Abby”’s Abigail Van Buren in a later generation (their published photographs being as fake as their pen names).

Doma was a graphologist – a handwriting analyst – a teller-of-character and an adviser-of-marriage for anyone who would send her a stamped envelope and a few words of handwriting, either on the handy coupon printed in the newspapers or on any other scrap of paper you cared to use. In return for that sample and envelope, you would receive either a 1000-word analysis, or a list of codes to check in her newspaper columns.

If, for instance, she told you to check her “Key Number 7,” you would learn that you were “Restless”:

You have strong likes and dislikes, and are sensitive to physical things. You are restless and have a keen, active mind. You are fond of excitement and like to have your life full of thrills. You are very talkative and sometimes offend people by tactless, hasty remarks, when you do not mean to hurt their feelings. You are very interesting and have a good deal of personal magnetism. You are aggressive, but it is difficult for you to carry things through to success. Be a little more persevering and patient and you will be more successful.

Your special characteristic, if Doma told you to read “Key No. 84,” was that:

You are artistic and like to have things as beautiful and artistic as you can. You notice the beauty and artistry of everything.

“Key No. 95” was equally flattering:

You have a great fluency of thought and speech and find it easy to write. Also you have an excellent sense of rhythm and harmony and enjoy music very much.

In other words, everything was positive and flattering, or, if not quite flattering, at least your flaws were excusable and understood. I suppose that even if you didn’t have “an excellent sense of rhythm and harmony,” you wouldn’t mind being alerted to this as-yet-untapped talent.

The marvelous Doma could even advise you on your love life, advising you to choose your mate based on your handwriting:

Today Doma shows in The Standard-Examiner eight characteristic types of handwriting, and she explains what type of person would make the best husband or wife for persons writing one of these.

The first is the “spread-out” type of writing. This person writes as if he had all the paper in the world, and he’s doing his best to use it all. This indicates hospitality sociability and the ability to make friends easily. This sort of person should marry somebody who enjoys life, parties, excursions; who’d rather have people in to dinner than to stay at home and read.

Does your writing include “very high upper loops”?

This type of writer should marry the mental type, who also enjoys reading, thinking and learning new things – the type of person who has a deep intellectual curiosity. A person who is educated and who can carry on a good conversation about ideas, rather than about things and people, is the most congenial type.

If your writing better fits another one of the patterns in the illustration here – and if you dare ask, because we might tease you! – I’ll add Doma’s advice to you in a comment.

The Ogden Standard-Examiner promoted Doma heavily; other papers – such as the Manti Messenger sold her smaller space in their classified advertisement section. And from the Standard-Examiner’s coverage – or was it Doma’s own words? 1933 predates the modern journalistic standard of marking paid advertisements for what they were – the “Accuracy of Doma Amazes Everyone”:

Doma has won the praise of educational, professional an business leaders of Ogden, who have been astounded at her character readings, based on samples of their handwritings. From Doma’s accurate analyses of people’s handwritings in the various clubs, schools and societies throughout the United States, people are able to pick out their friends from Doma’s description of their handwritings.

Weber College students, the superintendent an the principals of the public schools of Ogden, the pupils in the Lincoln, Lorin Farr and Polk schools, and the people who had their handwriting analyzed in the Paramount theatre and Wright’s department store were very much pleased with their analyses an found it very much to their advantage.

I have no trouble believing that Doma demonstrated her character analysis as a theater or department store stunt – but I wonder whether the principals of those schools really did consult her, or were happy to have themselves outed if they did. And I repeat here that I have found no evidence of Doma’s activities in “various clubs, schools and societies throughout the United States.” Either she used a different pen name, or else she was, um, exaggerating. She appears in a few newspapers in southern California, and in Utah (chiefly in Ogden). Period.

Anyway, I do wonder whether she analyzed the handwriting of Ogden’s educators – and if she did, whether the handwriting was submitted to Doma by those educators themselves, or by someone else who had a few words of their writing.

Because I also wonder – am highly skeptical of – the participation of others whom she claimed to have analysized.

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Doma was in Salt Lake City last Saturday and met A.W. Ivins and J. Reuben Clark, Jr., of the First Presidency in the Mormon church. They ave her the above signatures, and were interested in handwriting analysis.

Great ability in leadership is shown by the long endings under their names, which indicate determination to do everything well and finish things perfectly. Notice the connected signatures, the force, energy, enthusiasm and ability. They have natural ability which has been cultivated throughout the years until now they stand for masterful leadership. Their signatures offer a remarkable study in handwriting.

There you are. You may have felt a whisper of support for these two men from another direction, but now you also have the testimony of Doma. In the mouths or two or three witnesses …

(Thanks, Grant, for sending the fun clipping when you spotted it. This post is on you.)