Saturday, December 14, 2013

Postcard Project: Odds & Ends, Part 1

All of these cards are undated and/or are without sent-to addresses. I've placed them in a semblance of chronological order based almost entirely upon guessing. As always, spelling and grammatical mistakes are copied verbatim from the cards.

No date or address. I don't recognize the children pictured.

". . . tired when we got . . . the train ride. Be sure . . . of May then Harry will . . . He is going to be confirmed . . . with . . . and I am . . . I hope . . . me along. I am there already when you get this picture and so is Louie."

Doesn't make much sense when you can't read the whole thing, does it?

Card addressed but not stamped.
Name of addressee too faint to read.

"From [town name redacted] Wis to [town name redacted] Mich. I am sending you only a half a dozen of Postcard, for some one took them while I was out working & so now I am sending you all I have left. Am sorry But I couldn't find out who took the rest. Will write more with time. From your Dad."

My best guess is that this is from my great-grandfather (who I never met because he died in the 1930s) to one of his children. I'm thinking that, after the family moved to Michigan, he might have stayed behind in Wisconsin for a while to work.

I do find it curious that the card is written in English. Great-Grandpa emigrated from Germany to America as an adult, so English definitely wasn't his first language. I know that my mom always said that my grandma (who I also never met because she died a few months before I was born) was embarrassed by her German heritage. I wonder if my great-grandparents just tried really hard to put Germany behind them. If my guess about the timing of this card is correct, it would have been sent after the Great War, but before WWII.


The following three cards are all from the same person, one of Grandma's older brothers, to different people. None of them are addressed or stamped, so they were probably sent as part of a letter or a package. My guess is that all of them were sent somewhere between the mid-1920s and the early 1930s.

Not addressed to a particular person, probably meant for
the family in general.

"Wishing you a merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. From [redacted]."

Addressed to his parents.

"Easter Wishes To Mother & Dad. From [redacted]."

Addressed to his brother.

"Easter Joy to [redacted]. From [redacted]."

2 comments:

Patricia said...

Easter cards! Those have entirely gone out of favor. I love the lithographs.

balyien said...

When I first saw those cards, I thought they were really ugly, but the more I look at them, the more I find the beauty in them.