Dot + Bob — Christmas Card, 1949

Dot and Bob — Dorothy Davis and Robert Earl Wildermuth — in a photo Christmas card from 1949, the year after his Stanford BA. He is in a pale double-breasted suit; she in a dark jacket with a brooch at the lapel, hair lit from above. Both laughing — the smile that everyone who knew Bob remembers.

Signed in pencil at the bottom: “Love, Dot + Bob — 1949” with a small annotation in the upper-left that appears to read “Stanford senior.” The card is the first surviving record of Dottie in the family archive.

This is also one of the last visual records of Bob before his service in Korea, before the Pentagon, before the rest of the career. The smile in this photograph is the one his daughter Terrie would inherit, and through her, Chuck.