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| Guest register, St. Charles Hotel, Kerrville, March 9, 1927 |
This sheet is interesting, at least to me, for several reasons. In the upper left corner, someone has written "Rotary Luncheon, $28.50," and since this is Wednesday's register sheet, I'm guessing the Rotary met on Wednesdays, just as they do now. The letters in the "Time" column: D, L, and S -- I speculate they stand for Dinner, Lunch, Supper -- but that really doesn't make sense. Perhaps one of you can figure out that one.
Lastly, I think the signatures are interesting. Penmanship was so important in those days.
Thanks again to the Wallers for sharing this with all of us.
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Out of curiosity I did a search to try and find out what the time column entries might be. There was nothing definitive, though I did find four examples of hotel registers from the same period with similar entries. Three had B, L, D, and S, which according to one archive "possibly" represented breakfast, lunch, dinner, and supper. The fourth had B, L, D, R, and M. The M may have stood for maid service, and if I had to guess, the R probably stood for room service. All of which, I'm guessing, are amenities that had to be requested up front, and which were recorded in the otherwise unused time column. So I think your speculation is correct.
ReplyDeleteIt's so interesting to see these items from the past. Thank you for sharing them with us. Do you suppose the S and D stand for Single and Double? I can't think of what the L means unless it's an oddly formed S, perhaps written by a different person. Maybe they changed the meaning of the column at some point and the L does stand for Luncheon. Anyway, it's fun to speculate. Thank you again for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting.
ReplyDeleteIn reference to the "D," "L," and "S," I suspect that you are correct.
In those days the words lunch, and dinner were both utilized for the midday meal. The D, L, and S' are not written in the same handwriting. So, one person may have written D for the meal, whereas someone else may have written L.
As to why the letters were written in the column that is labeled, "Time," perhaps they developed a lazy habit of writing D, L, or S for the time of day, rather than the actual time, that the guests checked in, or checked out of the hotel.