Silver Legion 75th Anniversary postcard

OTD 2008

It had not occurred to me that today, January 31st, was the anniversary of the founding of Pelley’s Silver Legion of America (Silvershirts) until early this morning when I saw a post on facebook in a North Carolina history group to that effect.

I certainly didn’t miss it in 2008, the big 75th birthday. I probably drove by the old building on a corner of Charlotte Street in the ritzy Grove Park district of Asheville. I most certainly made a special stop at the post office.

Occasionally I would purchase a rather common local picture postcard of the Silvershirt HQ building, which had also served as Galahad College in 1932. These postcards do not announce it as such. They are captioned for the Asheville Women’s Clubhouse or, later with the AWC label blotted out, Plonk School for the Creative Arts. I used to find them for $2 on eBay.

On January 31st, 2008 I was ready with a small handful of them. I went to the Oteen branch post office and asked the clerk, if I were to affix stamps to them, would he hand cancel the cards and return them to me over the counter without having to address them or send them through the mail at the risk of damaging them.

He said he didn’t see why not and it was done. I fussed at him when the first one was a bit over-inked and asked him to blot his stamper for the rest. I knew the clerk well so this was all spoken half in jest. I was satisfied and left with a smile and my souvenir cards.

I know I shared one of them with an international visitor in my home soon after. I had given him a 1930s edition of ‘No More Hunger’ and, as an afterthought, suggested he might need a bookmark. I explained to him what we had here, slipped it between the pages and delivered it to his hands to be sent abroad where I hope it may have a place on his bookshelf today.

I have since become quite a chaotic collector of postcards so that any others are lost in the shuffle. I’ll run across them one day, perhaps inside the cover of a copy of ‘Door to Revelation’ or ‘Why I Believe the Dead Are Alive,’ but safely lost for the moment.

The Florida panther postage stamps were a nice touch, as they are a silver blue hue and the cat looks intense, like Pelley certainly was.