Postmarked Bombay

Twenty-four-year-old Harry Witt did the unthinkable in 1937 when he left his family and sweetheart, Idie Lacy, in Houston, Texas, to take a job halfway around the world in British Colonial India.

Adventurous tales of tiger hunts, rickety train rides, and a birthday with a maharajah mix with humorous anecdotes of rural village life and brokering cotton to fill Harry's letters home, giving Idie a unique glimpse of life in a strange land with a Texas twist.

Then Idie also did the unthinkable in 1939, taking a month-long sea voyage to marry Harry in Bombay. Their stories speak of learning to cope with each other and with life in a foreign culture and a faraway place. Idie was subsequently evacuated from India during World War II, while Harry stayed, working on a mission for his company and his country. His business contacts with Hindu, Muslim and English merchants helped him procure strategic materials for the Allies. Along the way, he interacted with everyone from peasants to maharajas and trekked into Nepal with a colleague, the first white men to do so.