Some of Dad's U.S. Navy Ephemera from 1947

OK, so what are ephemera? Wikipedia says, "Ephemera are any transitory written or printed matters that are not meant to be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek ephemeros, meaning "lasting only one day, short-lived".^[1] Some collectible ephemera are advertising, trade cards, airsickness bags, bookmarks, catalogues, coasters, greeting cards, letters, pamphlets, postcards, posters, prospectuses, defunct stock certificates or tickets, and zines." 

In other words, stuff we tend to throw away. In my family, especially on my dad's side, a lot of that sort of thing has survived. His older sister Beulah Vee died just short of her eighteenth birthday, so he was the only child after that event. My grandmother Rosa Mae Wright never really got over her death. I've written a series of blog posts about the shrine of memorabilia she kept in Beulah Vee's hope or what she called her daughter's cedar chest. Hope had gone, I guess. You can read them here and here. Mamaw kept a lot of material, much of it ephemera. Most of it has been donated to the state archives since it offers a snapshot of Beulah Vee's life in Gadsden in the 1920's and 1930's.

As we discovered when we cleaned out the house in 1999, my grandmother kept lots of other ephemera, some of it dealing with dad's time in the U.S. Navy in the late 1940's. I've written a couple of blog posts about his service; they are linked at the photos below. I recently came across REAL ephemera my grandmother had saved, some of dad's Navy change of address forms. More comments below. 

I've covered some other ephemera on this blog, including bookmarks, match books, and I don't remember what else. One of these days I'm going to get around to a couple of posts using my mammoth movie and concert ticket stubs collection! 

Dad did fireman's training at the Navy's Great Lakes center in Illinois, so this card dated February 19, 1947, tells his parents he is transferring to San Diego. Beginning in July 1946 he had done twelve weeks of boot camp at Bainbridge, Maryland. 

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This card was mailed to 1113 Chandler Street in Gadsden; I always knew the address as 1313, a spooky number easy to remember, so a change occurred at some point, presumably in the 1950's. 

This card informs my grandparents that dad is being stationed "overseas" and giving an address in San Francisco to be used until further notice. 

This address is a bit more specific and apparently a correction postmarked four days after the previous one. These two cards were sent to a post office box my grandparents were using for some reason. Presumably the "NavRecSta" is the Navy Recruiting Station in San Francisco. 

I've written about dad's time in the south Pacific aboard the USS Errol here. Another more extensive post on his Navy career is here.