Inspiration from my mother

I was always in awe of my mother's handwriting. The nuns at St. Peter's Grade School in Quincy, Illinois, taught her a version of Palmer. I learned an even more simplified version in the mid '70s.

From Mom's Palmer notebook 1951. Mom was 12 and in the sixth grade..

Some things I noticed: the difference in style, especially in the way the lowercase letter 'r' was made confused me a bit in my third grade mind, which was locked to a rigid 'there is always one right way do do something,' as to how there could be a difference in something as objective as handwriting (of course my engineer-father always printed everything in all Caps). I never thought of it as an art; I think that happens when something is taught to you as utility. Many of the upper case letters finish in a way that do not connect with the lower case, but by the time I was taught in the mid 70's, more upper case were connecting to the lower case letters.

Dip pen exercises

The beginning of her notebook has exercises that focus on basic shapes and lines and then moves into letter formation and connection. The following exercises were a series of historical facts that students were to copy five times, each time trying to do better than the former.

Heading and first lines of facts. Probably from the Fall semester, 1950.

I think this is pretty impressive for a sixth grader. I will post more from her book as time allows.