W.S. Merwin’s typewriter came out of the attic this week, paper still in the platen, and E key stuck. This little machine brought poems to the page and beauty to the world. Our turn to continue its work.
In these early months of stewarding the Merwins’ house, we are making discoveries that surprise and delight us. As we go, we’ll share some of these finds with you in a new series called “Storied Objects.” To view other posts in the “Storied Objects” series, click here.
I think that had originally been our mother’s typewriter. She had been a secretary, and I was always impressed with her typing speed. And she rarely made mistakes! She always typed the master copy of my father’s Sunday bulletins, and making a mistake on one of those entailed a complicated process of taking the several layers carefully out of the typewriter, “erasing” the mistake with correction fluid, and re-inserting all the layers back into the typewriter so that the lines could be continued without the correction being obvious! It was her Friday night chore, so the bulletins could be run
with blotter sheets between the newly printed ones! Quite a production.
Ruth