We know where the book was purchased — and that it cost 75 cents — thanks to a tiny sticker affixed diagonally to the upper-right corner of the first page:
Department Store
Ladies Wear
Books, Gifts
Hinton W Va
But Dolin & Rushford remains a bit of a mystery. The Internet does not, at this time, have anything in the way of details about this department store of long ago. We're probably going to need someone from the vicinity of tiny Hinton to check in and offer some details.1
The book has inscriptions on a few different pages. Written on the inside front cover, vertically from bottom to top, is "Madge King lovingly your devoted mother."2
Madge King's name is written again, in cursive, on the first page. And the first page of the novel contains this inscription, dated June 17, 1928:
Footnotes
1. Though it has a population of less than 3,000, Hinton looks like a good destination for off-the-beaten-path history buffs. (It's about two hours southeast of Charleston, West Virginia.) It has a veterans memorial museum, a railroad museum and a Civil War museum.
2. Here's one possibility for the identity of Madge King. It seems to fit the necessary details.
My maiden name is Dolin, and my Dad comes from Hinton, W. When I was a little girl we would visit his aunt;s dress shop in downtown Hinton. I have no memory of what it was called then - in the 1970s, but she was what I thought to be quite an old lady then! I think it's pretty safe to assume that it was one and the same, though some decades after your book find was purchased. My dad;s Aunt may have inherited the shop.
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