Annette Dyar letters

The collection consists of approximately 35 letters written between 1945 and 1947 by Annette Dyar to her family at home in Eureka, Illinois (810 South Main Street). During this time, Annette's father, Wilmer Merit Dyar (1884–1974), was assistant superintendent of the Woodford County Schools. Her mother, Emma Grace (Fish) Dyar (1886–1959), was a homemaker. Annette's younger brothers, Paul Edwin Dyar (1922–2004) and John Richard "Jack" Dyar (1924–1991), had just completed their wartime service with the U.S. Army Air Corps and U.S. Army Special Services Division. An older brother, Wilmer Eugene "Gene" Dyar (1916–1942), a bombardier with the Army Air Corps, was shot down and reported missing in action in 1942.

Immediately after her employment as a cryptanalytic aide with the U.S. Army Signal Corps ended, Annette moved from Washington, D.C. to New York City in early 1946. A graduate of the University of Illinois with a degree in library science, she found work at the St. Agnes Branch of the New York Public Library. Her letters chronicle her busy activities there, dinners with friends, church services she attended, excursions back to Washington, and her moves from one Manhattan apartment to the next. During this period (1945–1947) she lived at four addresses: 138 East 38th Street (Tatham House, Y.W.C.A.); 126 Riverside Drive; 40 Sherman Avenue (where she roomed with a Mrs. Hoskins or Haskins); and 147 East 60th Street. The last address she would soon share with her first husband, fellow librarian William James "Bill" Elliott, who appears as one of several young men Annette dated towards the end of the series, and whom she married on January 31, 1947.