Blomberg Property, Kinnekulle, Sweden

Undivided Back, used postcard. Postmarked February 13, 1905 from New York, NY. Publisher:  Axel Eliassons Konstforlag, Stockholm, Sweden. No. 3561.

Price:  $10.00

Addressed to:   “Mrs. O. Thunstrom, 288 Flushing Ave., Astoria, L. I.”

“N. Y., den 12 febr. 1905. 

 Jag kommer till om frelag, för att stanna 10 dagar har nu lofvat [lovat] att stanna här, och det är ej utan att jag är ledsen deröfver [däröver] i alla fall, men det får väl gå för en tid. Hoppas att ni alla mår godt, stora och små. Vidare när jag kommer!  Många hälsningar, August.” 

The adverb deröfver, according to Wiktionary, is an obsolete spelling of däröver. Below, a translation from online sources. We’ll try to get a better one, shortly:

“I’m coming to you on Friday, to stay 10 days now have now promised to stay here, and it’s not without I’m sorry for anyway, but it may be a while. Hope you are all good, big and small. More when I arrive! Many greetings, August.”

Blomberg Säteri

From the above link, Blomberg Manor is beautifully described as being located  “…on the flowering mountain Kinnekulle on Lake Vänern.”  (Google translation coming up very poetic – no doubt from the Swedish!) The first-known original proprietor was from the early Middle Ages, an Olof Skötkonung of Blomberg. As to be imagined, since then the estate has passed through a variety of hands (bishop, priest, statesmen, noblemen, captain) and uses (dairy, lime mortar, grinding mill, sawmill, distillery). Today it is proudly owned by the Jönsson Family, and is an  “ecologically driven farm in regards to agriculture and meat production”  per quick web translations.

Sources:  deröfver. n.d. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/der%C3%B6fver (accessed April 30, 2017).

Blomberg Säteri. (blombergsäteri.se.) Accessed April 30, 2017.

Nubble Light, York Beach, Maine

Undivided Back, used postcard. Postmarked September 3, 1904 from York, Maine. Publisher:  Chisholm Brothers, Portland, Maine. No. 40.

Price:  $5.00

A fifty-year span

This is the first postcard from our Olaf and Elise Thunstrom Collection which was a wonderful find this spring in San Juan Bautista, CA. They’ll be going up in chronological order, according to postmarks (a few we’ll have to guess at as they are unmarked) and are a collection of 29 cards, some sent from Sweden. They span a nice, neat, half-century, from 1904 to 1954.

A little background, so far….

Sweden natives Olof Thunström and Elise Bengtsson were married May 19, 1894 in Manhattan, New York. They had two sons, Olaf, born July 19, 1895 and Clarence (Wilhelm Clarence) born March 15, 1899. (Olof seems to be generally spelling Olaf here in the States). Per the 1900 Federal Census for Manhattan, Olaf was born January 1863 and Elise, March 1863. The family was living on E. 53rd St. (house number not given) and at this time Olaf was working as a plumber. From a few quick searches, son Olaf gains newspaper mention as a track star in high school and becomes a musician, by trade. Clarence was found working as a clerk with the stock exchange, but we’ll delve into details as we go on. This particular Nubble Light card from 1904 has a short message on the front:   “Kära lilla Lisa”  (Dear little Lisa) and it’s signed,  “Amanda.”  We’ll see if our friend, Lars, in Sweden, can help on the rest of the message, and on some of the upcoming cards, too. The card is addressed:

“Mrs. Olof Thunström, 14 West 49 Street, New York.”

Happily still in use

Cape Neddick Light or Nubble Light or just “the Nubble” has been in service since 1879.

Sources:  Ancestry.com. New York, New York, Marriage Index 1866-1937.

Registration State: New York; Registration County: Queens; Roll: 1787091; Draft Board: 173. Ancestry.com. U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918.

Year: 1900; Census Place: Manhattan, New York, New York; Roll: 1113; Page: 4A; Enumeration District: 0745; FHL microfilm: 1241114. (Ancestry.com)

Cape Neddick Light. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Neddick_Light (accessed April 24, 2017).

Mary, Martha And Annie Julin And Olga Lund

Divided back, Real Photo Postcard. Circa 1908 – 1910. Kruxo stamp box.

Price:  $15.00

Four beautiful ladies posing for the camera, and identified on the back of the postcard:

Back row, left to right:  Mary Julin; Olga Lund, age eighteen.

Front row, left to right:  Aunt Martha Julin; Annie Julin.

According to the family member who gave us the i.d. on the back of the postcard, the year the photo was taken was 1903, but divided back postcards were not used in the United States until December 1907, and the style of stamp box, per Playle’s, indicates the card would have been made between 1908 and 1910. So, this could have been an older photo that was not turned into a postcard until that time, or an incorrect date guess by the family member.

The four women have not been located in records at this time, though there are some possibilities, but none all showing in the same area. We can only presume they lived in the U.S. and it’s probably a safe bet that Martha had emigrated, as she would be the oldest of the group; the other three may also be American immigrants or second-generation of guessing Swedish, Norwegian or Finnish descent. But note, on the nicely-understated jewelry for Mary and Annie…..Annie wears a small pin that shows some type of flag. If we could only make out the details!

Next To Nature

Divided back, Real Photo Postcard. Postmarked July 8, 1907 from Los Angeles, California.

Price:  $12.00

” ‘Next to Nature.’  Got your cards. B.J.”  Addressed to:

“Harry W. West. Inglewood, Cal.”

Had this card not already have been captioned (love it, thank you!) by the sender, I think I would have given it the title:  “What We Were Wearing In 1907”  as it seems a nice example of some varying styles in women’s fashion. And aren’t they beautiful…these five friends posing and smiling for the camera, seated on a stretch of lawn, on a sunny July day.

Addressee, Harry W. West is most likely the person named as such on the 1910 Federal Census for Pasadena, born Iowa about 1887, of Swedish-born parents, occupation driver with an ice company; spouse Freda L. West, born Sweden, about 1887. From an Ancestry.com family tree, Freda’s maiden name is stated as Lundgren. Below, a crop from the 1909 Pasadena city directory, showing Harry West, employee of the Pasadena Ice Co., residence 988 Glen Ave.

Sources:  Year: 1910; Census Place: Pasadena Ward 5, Los Angeles, California; Roll: T624_86; Page: 15B; Enumeration District: 0315; FHL microfilm: 1374099. (Ancestry.com)

Thurston’s Residence and Business Directory of Pasadena, 1909-1910. p. 357. Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995.

The Road To The Dance

Divided back, Real Photo Postcard, unused. Velox stamp box. Circa 1907 – 1917.

Price:  $4.00

The who and where are unknown in this RPPC (for some reason I keep thinking Oregon) of three young men and a young woman, dressed up for the evening, heading up the dirt road to….a country dance, we think. The young lady carries a parasol, and per the norm for the time-period, all four are wearing hats. That’s a wide hat band ribbon around the fellow’s hat, second from left:  You can just barely discern the crown that’s blending in with the background.

Easter Joy Attend You

Divided back, embossed postcard. Unused with writing. Publisher:  International Art Publishing Co., New York and Berlin. Printed in Germany. Circa 1907 – 1914.

Price:  $8.00

The spring colors are beautiful in this card, and the theme is egg shell bells and pussy willows, with a narrow road stretching off into the distance…On the back is written,  “Miss Conroy Form Dora.”  Heehee, “from” is charmingly misspelled. This looks like it might have been a card from child to teacher.

Easter Chick For Verne

Divided back, embossed postcard, unused with writing. Copyright 1909, H. Wessler. Series:  422.

Price:  $7.00

A Peaceful Easter.

Chicks rule this year…and this is another beauty, a charmer (that face!) Our chick appears in an oversized eggshell, the top broken off; egg and chick comfortably nestled in a cluster of lilies of the valley. Note how very well-done the subtle shading is around the shell and flowers, and the white decorative trim at top and bottom is beautiful, especially falling as it does on that shade of gray for the background.

In pencil, on the reverse, is written:   “Verne from Aunt Bertha.”  And with no loss of elegance from front to back, the publisher’s lily design (a bonus for Easter, we reckon 😉 ) divides the back, and the top corner holds a matching stamp box.

A publisher mystery……..solved:  H. Wessler is Hugo Wessler, per the invaluable, Publishers’ Trademarks Identified by Walter E. Corson.

Who was H. Wessler? At the time of this post, no identifying records had been found…….Later we discovered his full name with postcard reverse design cross-referenced in the Walter E. Corson publication…..There’s a Hugo Wessler, born about 1879 in Germany and living in New York, as a possible match. Advanced book searches only reveal snippet views such as the initial one we’d already found:  He’s mentioned in a Google book snippet along with John Wensch (see prior post), as both being importers and producers of beautiful greeting and postcards. We presume that Wessler, like Wensch, was of German ancestry. Quite a number of postcards can be found online for him, but none showing the full name. This is the second H. Wessler we have on LCG:  See Just A Few Lines From.

Sources:  Lighter, Otto & Reeder, Pearl. Hobbies. Vol. 59, p. 147. 1954: Lightner Publishing. Google snippet. Accessed April 16,  2017.

Corson, Walter E. Publishers’ Trademarks Identified. Ed. James Lewis Lowe. Norwood, PA:  1993. (print).

A Lucy Larcom Easter Greeting

Divided back, embossed, unused postcard. Design copyright John Winsch, 1911. Printed in Germany.

Price:  $5.00

In tones of rose, forget-me-not-blue and plum….A Happy Easter!

“Every flower to a bird has confided

The joy of its blossoming birth,

The wonder of its resurrection

From its grave in the frozen earth.”

This is an excerpt from the fourteen-stanza poem “Nature’s Easter Music” by American poet and author, Lucy Larcom (1824 – 1893).

Ms. Larcom is known especially for her autobiographical, A New England Girlhood, and for having gone to work in the cotton mills for about ten years, starting at age eleven…She was a very popular and prolific writer. The Poetical Works of Lucy Larcom is available as a Google eBook. (Personally, I must admit I had never heard of Ms. Larcom till this post, but am now a fan. The line, “Who has tracked a dream’s beginning?”  from “The Magic Flower” has captured my imagination.)

Publisher and New York native, John Winsch (1865 – 1923) is well-known to ephemera collectors, especially for his Halloween postcards – antique and vintage Halloween anything is much sought-after today. The 1910 Federal Census for Richmond, NY shows his wife, Florence, born in Pennsylvania, about 1871, and their son, Frederick, born New York about 1905.

Sources:  Lucy Larcom. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Larcom (accessed April 15, 2017).

Larcom, Lucy. The Poetical Works of Lucy Larcom. Boston:  Houghton Mifflin Company, 1884. (Google.com)

“John O. Winsch (1910 – 1915) Publishers – W.” (MetroPostcard.com). Accessed April 16, 2017.

Year: 1910; Census Place: Richmond Ward 2, Richmond, New York; Roll: T624_1073; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 1315; FHL microfilm: 1375086. (Ancestry.com).

John Winsch (1865 – 1923). Find A Grave Memorial# 31161686. (Findagrave.com)

Hen And Chicks On The March

Divided back, unused postcard. Unknown Parisian publisher. Printed in France, Series or number 595. Dated by the sender:  October 1944.

Price:  $5.00

A very cute French postcard for Easter (though dated in October) showing a hen and her three chicks, marching off to une Fête de Pâques. The hen is a cut-out that is pasted on for a slight 3-D effect, and some of the card’s silver glitter still remains after seventy-three years. But we love the details:  the differing expressions for each of the feathered-four, and the red balloon, the green umbrella, the Pierrot-like clown hats worn by the chicks, and the artist’s realistic touch with the four-leaf clover….The card was, poignantly, sent home during WWII, from probably an American soldier, to his little girl, Elsa. He writes:

“Special for my sweet little daughter, Elsa-pie from her loving Daddy. France, October 1944.”

A close-up of the publisher logo appears below, but the company name is, for the moment, a mystery. For sure, that’s “Paris” at top and underneath would be “Marque Déposée”  for trademark, but what’s the first letter there…? Our best guess for the publisher initials is either T.D.A or Y.D.A.

Women In Greek Costume

Divided back, unused Greek postcard. Publisher:  Delta, Athens, Greece. Circa 1960s.

Price:  $3.00     Size:  4 x 5 and 13/16″

Just something to go with the prior post, for Greece….specifically regarding the traditional dress of Ίωάννινα or Ioannina in English, though the photo was actually taken near Acropolis at Athens. See the comment on this post from Maria.

Publisher Delta Editions was owned by Emmanuel Diakakis & Son. Address:  4 Apelou St., Athens. Greece.  “Έμμ. Διακάκης & Υίός – Άπελλοϋ – 4 – Τηλ – Άδήυαι.”

Source:  Ioannina. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ioannina (accessed April 2, 2017).