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TUNKHANNOCK — When she was looking through an old family desk last autumn, Sharyn Davis was surprised and delighted to find a pile of vintage valentines that young students at the Noxen Elementary School apparently had given to their teacher, Miss Emily Casterline, in the late 1930s.
“As soon as the shock wore off, I thought, ‘This needs to go on display at the (Dietrich) Theater.’ I needed to share them with the community,” Davis said, explaining she recognized surnames of other Wyoming County families and thought they’d like to see what their grandparents or great-grandparents had taken to school some 80 years ago.
The students’ valentine cards are on display at the Dietrich Theater on Tioga Street in Tunkhannock through Feb. 28, and can be viewed daily in the lobby, whenever patrons come to see a film.
The Noxen third-graders of so long ago must have admired their teacher a great deal — she was Davis’ late grandmother, who would have been in her 20s when she taught from 1935 to 1939 — because they purchased store-bought cards during the Depression.
“They might have only cost pennies,” said Davis, 48, who works as a school library aide, “but pennies would have meant a lot to them.”
The valentines depict animated figures dressed like sailors, golfers or baseball players, most of whom have a child-like, kewpie-doll appearance. But some of the quaint language on the cards seems to be intended for a recipient the same age as the sender, rather than a generation older.
Davis chuckled as she read such quaint sentiments as “Be my valentine, you modest violet,” “I confess I’m stuck on you” or “To my valentine: Whenever I see you I never quite dare to tell you I love you, but I do. So there!”
For Davis, there’s a mystery about how the valentines got into the old desk. While the valentines had been given to her maternal grandmother, Emily Casterline Lyons, the desk belonged to her paternal grandmother, Bette Sweppenheiser.
“My grandmothers never knew each other,” Davis said.
The desk came to her father, Harry Sweppenheiser, who offered it to Davis because she’s the family “historian and genealogist.”
“I said ‘Absolutely, I’d love to have it,’ ” Davis said.
Davis said she grew up exchanging valentines with classmates at school, as did her three children.
“I’m not sure kids do it as much nowadays,” she said. But, she added, she and her husband of 30 years, Christopher, always make sure to exchange a card on the special day.