An invitation to the 1946 Florence-Pope wedding

Tucked away inside an old book, I found an invitation to a 1946 wedding, complete in its original envelope (which was mailed with a purple, 3-cent Thomas Jefferson stamp).

The invitation was postmarked at 5 p.m. on June 15, 1946, in Bridgewater, Virginia. It was mailed to Mr. and Mrs. C.C. Moyers + Iva in Bergton, Virginia¹.

The wedding invitation, also pictured in full below, states:

Mrs. Gracey Rawley
announces the marriage of her daughter
Mary Florence
to
Mr. Fletcher Pope, Jr.
on Saturday, the first of June
Nineteen hundred and forty-six
Mt. Solon, Virginia
Fletcher Pope Jr. died on January 23, 2009, at age 86 and was a notable figure as an agricultural economist, according to his obituary in The Washington Post. An excerpt:

"Mr. Pope worked for the USDA most of his career, until retiring in 1979. He then operated a consulting firm for almost 12 years, analyzing developments in Soviet agriculture.

"He was born in Fort Seybert, West Virginia, and raised on a farm near Bridgewater, Virginia. He graduated from Bridgewater College, served stateside in the Navy as an aviator during World War II and received a master's degree in agricultural economics from the University of Maryland after the war. He attended Columbia University's Russian Institute, now known as the Harriman Institute."

His survivors included his wife, Mary, two sons and a sister.

Footnote
1. In 1936, Bergton and Cootes Store were affected by the Great Flood, which washed away many barns, cottages and other features in the area of Virginia.