1944–1945 Pen-Pal Postcards to a Cuban Student at the University of Havana from Brazil, Canada, Venezuela

On offer is a group of three postcards from three distinct countries, all written to a young Eduardo Morilla Macias of Gervasio 107, Havana. They were sent to Eduardo from international contacts who reached out to him in response to his advertisements requesting pen pals to correspond with him in “Spanish, English, French, Portuguese or Esperanto”.

Two of Eduardo’s advertisements were found in digitally preserved period sources: one in the April 1943 issue of the comic magazine Fantastic Adventures, and another in the January 1946 issue of Flandra Esperantisto. In 1943, he identified himself as a 17-year-old “who wants to correspond with American young people.” By 1946, Eduardo is identified as a student in the Law and Social Sciences department at the University of Havana, seeking to correspond with “activists”.

The postcards were sent to Eduardo (or Eddy, as one correspondent calls him) from Porto Alegre, Brazil; Maracaibo, Venezuela; and Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. All three postcards are written in Spanish.

On December 22, 1944, a correspondent named Yolanda wrote to Eduardo from Brazil, thanking him for his letter and apologizing for the delayed reply due to school exams. She tells him she is sending a postcard “que estampa o cine imperial donde todos los domingos la petizada se reúne” [“showing the Cine Imperial, where every Sunday the young people gather”].

In June of 1945, Eduardo received a postcard from Paulina Verdes of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. The card bears an “EXAMINED BY CENSOR” marking. Paulina references an ongoing exchange, writing: “¿Ha recibido Ud los periódicos que le he enviado…?” [“Have you received the newspapers that I sent you…?”], and comments on the weather: “Temperatura muy fría y fresca. Nada de calor.” [“The weather is very cold and cool. No heat at all.”].

The final, undated postcard (context places it in the late 1940s to early 1950s), is from Elana in Maracaibo and speaks to the image postcard’s image of Teatro Cine Landia. She addresses him as “Eddy” and notes that the Cine Landia is not the principal theatre of Maracaibo, but that the Teatro Baralt holds that distinction.

These postcards document the results of a targeted effort by a young Cuban to establish international correspondence during the 1940s, with evidence of sustained communication across multiple countries.

There is little formal documentation of Eduardo Morilla Macias, but evidence from his advertisements suggests he was born circa 1926 and later studied in the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences at the University of Havana. This places him at the University during Fidel Castro’s time there.

Condition: Postcards are all in Good condition. The Canadian postcard is missing an image, but it is not clear whether the card was sent to Morilla that way, or if the image was removed later.

Sources
 Flandra Esperantisto: Tijdschrift voor Esperanto-Onderwijs en-Propaganda. “Ed. Morilla [Classified advertisement].” Volume 13, no. 110 (January 1946): 1.

 Fantastic Adventures. “Correspondence Corner [Classified advertisement].” Volume 5, no. 4 (April 1943): 206.