Gossip Friday: Fruit From The Gables

From February 1941:

Xenia, OH–Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, famous movie couple, rate ace high with 29 members of the fifth grade geography class, taught by Miss Hannah McKenzie, in the O.S. and S.O. Home schools. 

The youngsters, ranging in age from nine to 11 years, proudly exhibited in their classroom Wednesday six boxes of citrus fruits sent to them by Mr. and Mrs. Gable, in reply to 29 individual letters written by the pupils to the film celebrities.

The gift arrived by express and consists of nine varieties of oranges, lemons and other citrus fruits. There were navel and blood oranges, sweet lemons, Myer’s lemons, Ponderosa lemons (about the size of a grapefruit), tangerines, limes, kumquats and grapefruit. The fruit was packed attractively and each box contained a sprig of lemon blossoms and a list of the fruit in that specific crate.

It all started in January when the class was studying California and making maps of the state. Miss McKenzie suggested that the pupils write to someone in California to obtain first-hand information on products grown there.

The class suggested Clark Gable, a native of Hopedale, near Cadiz, Ohio, and some of the letters were addressed to him, some to Mrs. Gable and some were sent jointly to the couple.

One little girl, writing to Mrs. Gable, began: “Almost everyone else is writing to Mr. Gable, so I thought I’d write to you.”

The letters were acknowledged by Gable in a telegram from Culver City, Calif., which Miss McKenzie received last week. It read: “Thank you for your kind letters and thoughts which both Mrs. Gable and I appreciated. Fruit was shipped today. We hope you enjoy it.” The fruit came from the Gables’ ranch.

Excitement prevailed in the geography class when the fruit was displayed on a table. “We feel we are the happiest children in the world,” one boy declared. Another added: “We think other children would be happy to have things like this.”

So that the other O.S. and S.O. children could share the gift, it was decided that the oranges, tangerines and kumquats would be distributed among the 29 letter-writers, and the other fruits were made into punch served to all the children of the institution at the noon meal Wednesday.

Scarcely had the children recovered from the first telegram, saying the fruit was on its way to Xenia, when Miss McKenzie received another wire. It read: “Just learned ‘Gone with the Wind’ is playing in your city. Will you and your pupils be my guests? Clark Gable.”

So the teacher and her class attended a matinee performance of the movie at a local theater Wednesday, as personal guests of Gable, who is starred in the film with Vivien Legh, this rounding out a big day in the lives of the 29 youngsters.