Flivverin' With You: The True Story of a Great Love in Letters

On February 14 1924 early in the five-year courtship of Ken Slifer and Caryl Dutton Ken created a Valentine that read Flivverin with you would be jes like ridin in a Rolls-Royce with anyone else. His precise drawing of a classy 1924 Rolls-Royce is the cards centerpiece. A flivver was any ordinary car similar to his familys assembly-line Model T Ford Lizzie. Ken and Caryl then both 18 were students at Bucknell University in Lewisburg Pennsylvania. From the beginning of their courtship Ken and Caryl frequently exchanged notes and letters. Eventually they were writing every day. Most of their letters were sent back and forth between Ken in Woodbury New Jersey and Caryl in Buffalo New York but the young lovers also wrote faithfully from anywhere they might be traveling. Excerpts from hundreds of these love letters illustrated by Kens beautifully painted envelopes create a fascinating memoir and rear-view mirror glimpse into the nature of life and love as experienced by two extraordinary young people in the 1920s. By 1928 Ken had been working in advertising for two years and finally had boosted his weekly paycheck to $40 enough for the young lovers to wed. With the marriage of Ken and Caryl their courtship letters came to an end but the love they shared continued undiminished for 63 years until Caryls death in 1991.