Professor Hamilton's Diary: April 15, 1935

He drives to Syracuse, New York; April 15 wasn't income tax day

Professor Hamilton left after breakfast for Syracuse, New York, where his sister Rose lived. After leaving Scranton, Pennsylvania, he hit rain and slippery roads, and later in the afternoon it began to snow.

“Soon it packed on the windshield, and I had to go very slow (one bad road construction, too, for some distance) and stop frequently to clean snow from windshield. Hard driving,” he commented.

He arrived at about 4 p.m. “I was cold and Rose got cocoa for me and I got myself warm,” he wrote. He spent the evening talking with Rose and another woman, named Edna. (Rose was unmarried, so Edna may have been a house mate.) The two no doubt discussed their sister Irene, who had died in 1933, and whose estate they were settling.

April 15 is the federal income tax filing deadline, but it hasn’t always been so. Paid subscribers can read on about the shifting date for filing since the income tax was imposed in 1913.

This 1940s Syracuse postcard is being offered by a dealer on eBay.