Emerson R. Moseley: Della Kay

An unusually sassy, flirty photo of Della

In 1923, while working at the grain exchange office at the Board of Trade building, marking a commodity board, during the day I had a rather unusual experience.

I had finished my duties when the market closed at 1 pm, but then I went in to the office where the market closings and contracts were sent out all over the country. I worked until the wires were all cleared, which was usually an hour or so. For towns or cities where we didn't have a direct wire, the messages went to the main office about five blocks away, and they relayed them to their destination.

On this particular day, I called the main office and proceeded to send all my messages. When I had completed sending the message, I received an acknowledgment from the operator that amazed me. The message ended with:

"Okay. Good night. God bless you. See you tomorrow. Della Kay."

I wrote the following poem about her:

It was while working a brokerage wire,
When came the end of the day,
While sending the market closings,
That I met my Della Kay.

When the last results were sent,
I heard the sounder say,
"OK GOOD NIGHT. GOD BLESS YOU.
SEE YOU TOMORROW. DELLA KAY."

Within two weeks we were married,
And I'll always bless the day,
That brought into my life,
My wonderful Della Kay.

Now three score years have come and gone,
We've trod the low roads and the fast,
Though there were those who said at the wedding,
"I know it will never last."

But last it will 'till the angels come,
When again I'll hear her say,
"Okay. GOOD NIGHT. GOD BLESS YOU.
SEE YOU TOMORROW. DELLA KAY."

###

Within two weeks, Della and I were married. Della had been a prime source of money for her mother, and her mother wasn't happy at the prospect of losing a daughter, or gaining me for a son-in-law.

A short time after Della Kay and I were married, her old boss from St. Louis came to town. She had worked in a branch office for him while he was making it to the top with the Postal in St. Louis, and had later been made a district superintendent in an area of 250 miles or so of St. Louis.

One Saturday, Superintendent Blume was in town and heard the story of my romance with Della. He asked the office manager if I couldn't be the operator that went with him to the football game in Lawrence, Kansas. (Was this at KU?)

Superintendent Blume was very fond of football and spoke highly of the job that I did reporting the plays at the game. On Monday morning he asked the Kansas City manager why he didn't make a commercial employee out of me.

We were opening a large (the largest) branch office at 114 E. 10th Street in Kansas City, and he wanted me to be the manager of it. I never knew for sure, but always suspected that his knowing Della didn't hurt me any.

I was very happy to be a branch manager, and my branch became the largest in Kansas City. I worked very hard to make it the best we had, and the next fall we won the Outstanding Achievement Award in Kansas City. I was awarded a trip to New York with all expenses paid.

We left Kansas City in our car in early November and drove through. By that time we had a bouncing baby boy, (James Graham Moseley, born July 13, 1924 in Kansas City, Missouri) and heated his bottle on the engine of the car when we would stop for a break or lunch.

It was a glorious trip until we got close to the Great Lakes on our way home. We ran into a tremendous snow storm, and from then on it was more arduous, but we managed quite well. We only got stuck a very few times, and were always able to push out or maneuver the car so we didn't need a wrecker.