The story below is from our January/February 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
In February 1962, Roanoke’s quirky, 600-pound valentine made global headlines when it was delivered to astronaut John Glenn’s front yard, signed by over 3,000 locals.
In 1962, Roanoke delivered the world’s largest valentine to astronaut John Glenn.
Downtown Roanoke Incorporated was searching for a means, a gimmick really, to promote downtown retail. Three relatively new shopping malls – Crossroads, Towers and Roanoke-Salem Plaza – were effectively luring shoppers away from Roanoke’s city center. Thus in February 1962 the organization, which had been organized in 1960, used a valentine theme with the slogan “Downtown, Heart of Roanoke.”
To hype the slogan, DRI decided to create the world’s largest valentine, literally.
The wooden card was 12 feet high and opened to 16 feet wide. Shoppers were invited to visit downtown merchants, sign the card and vote on the recipient. Each day the valentine was moved to a different DRI-affiliated store, the locations announced on Roanoke’s two television stations and five radio stations.
The balloting was brisk, but clear favorites emerged. Astronaut John Glenn and President Kennedy’s daughter Caroline were the favorites. Glenn was regularly making headlines as he prepared to orbit the earth and with such publicity it came as no surprise that Glenn eventually won with 60% of the vote.
The front of the card read, “To the John Glenn family — from the people of Roanoke, Virginia.” The message inside conveyed the well-wishes of the Star City. “You are our valentine, John! Our hearts are with you — Roanoke, Virginia.”
On February 13, the 600-pound Valentine was delivered to the front yard of the Glenn home on North Harrison Street in Arlington, Virginia. There to receive Roanoke’s quirky gift was Glenn’s wife, Annie, and 14-year-old daughter Lyn. Mrs. Glenn, appropriately dressed in red, stood in awe of the card that contained over 3,000 signatures inked in red. Glenn himself was at Cape Canaveral preparing for his space mission. Mayor Willis “Wick” Anderson made the presentation.
“Our thoughts and prayers, along with those of millions of other Americans, will be with you and your family,” Anderson stated as Glenn’s launch was scheduled the next day, though it would eventually be delayed almost a week due to weather.
Jack Smith, executive vice-president of the Roanoke Chamber of Commerce, gave Annie and Lyn charms for their bracelets that were replicas of the Mill Mountain Star.
The valentine card had been driven to Arlington by two Marine sergeants, Elgin Murphy and Donald Michaels, of Roanoke’s 5th Engineer Company. Murphy and Michaels stood close by as Anderson and Smith presented their gifts.
The mid-afternoon presentation ceremony on the Glenn’s front lawn had been carefully choreographed with the director of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce. The card, having left Roanoke by truck at 4 a.m., was transferred to a lowboy type moving van for unloading at the Glenn home. Seven men put it on rollers and positioned it in the yard with ropes. One of the movers remarked, “If that thing fell over on a kid, it would smash him up.”
Fearing the card was not stable, the men repositioned the card to the side of the house propping it against some trees. Wrestling it to its second position, the card’s hinges broke and had to be repaired. All was in place, however, when the astronaut’s family came out on their front lawn.
Following brief remarks, Glenn’s wife directed security personnel from NASA to move the card to the carport where it could be sheltered for her husband to see. The next day a front page headline in the Roanoke Times declared, “Roanoke’s Heart Now Belongs to Astronaut,” with an Associated Press photo of the mayor and Annie Glenn smiling in front of the card.
Annie Glenn would later tell Life Magazine that the bulky valentine had to be removed from the carport as she was afraid a strong wind would blow it over on the family car. Unknown to Roanoke officials at the time, the card’s delivery had not come at an optimal time. Annie had been distraught about her husband’s pending launch.
Questions had been raised publicly about the adequacy of his heat shield which, if true, was life-threatening. Barely able to sleep for days, Annie had been awakened in the pre-dawn hours of February 13 when television crews began assembling their cameras on her lawn in preparation for Roanoke’s delivery. Life Magazine termed the whole valentine card affair “bizarre” considering the dangers and concerns inherent in Glenn’s mission. Nonetheless, Annie remained gracious and appreciative.
A few days later, Mayor Anderson received a three-page, handwritten thank you note from Annie Glenn. The card read in part, “The largest Valentine in the world! Lyn and I will always remember our first look at our beautiful friendship Valentine which you good people so kindly brought to us…We talked with (John) last night on the phone and told him about the thousands of signatures on the Valentine and described the beauty of it.”
Roanoke’s valentine was reported in 300 newspapers around the U.S. and in newspapers in London and Milan. Glenn eventually saw the valentine a week or so later after returning home from his successful mission in space. At the end of February, officials with the Arlington Chamber removed it from Glenn’s lawn using the wood for scrap.
The story above is from our January/February 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
