Maggie had an interesting life long before she came to me. She lived in Arizona before arriving in west Texas with her recently relocated mistress around 1946. At the time, my grandparents were newly married and owned a local cafe in town and chain letters were all the rage. With the cafe being centrally located and typewriters being scarce in most households, my 18 year-old grandmother identified a business opportunity. She purchased Maggie for $25, about the same amount they paid in rent for their apartment each month, and began typing copies of chain-letters for customers in the cafe. She charged 25¢ per page and was able to recover the cost of the typewriter in no time.
My mom remembers my grandfather using Maggie often enough and my mom used her for a time as well before Maggie fell into disuse. During the hot west Texas summers, their home was cooled by a swamp-cooler. Over time, the damp air caused Maggie’s case to start smelling musty so at some point my grandmother moved her out to the garage where she waited patiently for me to find her.
At the end of 2018, 91 years after she was manufactured and about 72 years after she came to live with my grandmother, she was given fresh life thanks to my love and wanting of her, Benjamin’s diligent work to restore her, and a new name for her new life: Maggie Underwood - the typewriter I’d long hoped for who was there all along just waiting to meet me.
