To Lena From Sophia B. Freeman

Divided back, embossed, unused postcard. “Christmas” Series – Postcard No. 207. Printed in Germany. Circa early to mid-1910s.

Price:  $5.00

“To = Lena Davis.   From = Sophia B. Freeman. Handsworth, Sask.”

Re-visiting our friend, Lena…..it’s been a while, but here’s one from our Lena Davis Collection. The publisher name needs research, will get to that shortly, but the card showing Merry Christmas and poinsettias, extends this verse to us:

“Thine be all the joy and treasure,

Peace, enjoyment, love and pleasure.”

The sender wrote:

“Dear Friend, Will answer your kind letter after Xmas. Charles and the little boys are with me for Xmas so I am busily engaged in cooking the usual amount of cake & plum puddings. I wish you a very happy Xmas with lots of fun. Truly[?] yours, Mrs. J. W. Freeman.”

It looks like Sophia is found on the 1916 Canadian Census taken in Stoughton Village, Saskatchewan, which is about 25 miles southwest of Handsworth, the address on the card. Both she and her husband, John William Freeman, were born in England. Sophia was born about 1889. They have two daughters, Mary Sophia, age 2, and Esther Francis, 2 months old. Also in the household is Charles Henry Braithwaite, sister to Sophia, so Sophia’s maiden name is Braithwaite. And this Charles then, must be the one mentioned on the card.

Source:  Year: 1916; Census Place: Saskatchewan, Assiniboia, 17; Roll: T-21935; Page: 2; Family No: 15. (Ancestry.com).

Forget-me-nots and Seagulls

Divided back, embossed postcard. Postmarked May 11, 1913 from Elwood, Nebraska. Series or number G10.

Price:  $5.00

“Only a message sweet and true

Saying I think today of you.”

Addressed to:   “Miss Lena Davis, Almena Kans.”

“May 10       Dear Cousin, We are all well having fine weather. I have 109 little chicks my housecleaning done and garden planted. The wheat look fine. Fred is listing corn he has been sick but better now. The boys grow fast and play out doors all the time. From Your Cousin Alice.”

Have been away from posts (alas) for some time. This seems to be a common refrain lately (sigh). Anyway! Here’s one from our Lena Davis Collection (hey, Lena 🙂 ) of a beautiful sunset on a lake (lake as in Great Lakes comes to mind, being a Michigander) with sailboat, seagulls and is partially framed by forget-me-nots. Flipping to the back to read the message from Lena’s cousin Alice, we jump from lakeside to a rural farm setting of chicks, wheat and corn……What woman cannot relate to this sense of accomplishment,  “I have my 109 little chicks, housekeeping done and garden planted.”  Time to kick back on the front porch with an ice-cold lemonade (while of course, keeping an eye on the boys, ever-multi-tasking 😉  ).

And, yes, Fred is really “listing” corn. He would have used a piece of farm equipment similar to the one pictured below, planting the kernels in the furrows (the ditches) so the corn could root deeper in the soil and the roots could be covered later, thus protecting them in times of drought.

Source:  Widtsoe, John Andreas. Dry Farming:  A System of Agriculture for Counties Under Low Rain Fall. New York:  The McMillan Company, 1911. (archive.org).

To Lena From Gladys

Divided back, embossed postcard. Postmarked December 29, 1913, Almena, Kansas.

Price:  $3.00

A Happy New Year

A pink rose and some forget-me-nots are framed in blue. (The embossing from the reverse is maybe even nicer – very elegant in white.) And this card was sent to our old friend Lena Davis who we haven’t visited in a while – her cousin Gladys writes:

“Almena Kans. Dec. 30 1913. Dear Cousin, Rec’d your card glad to hear. How is Grandma & all the rest. John’s mother and Sophie are sick took down Wed. We went Sat. and just got home they are better now. Don’t know when we will be up but don’t wait on us. How is Laura, Write soon, Glad.”

Hearty Greetings

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Here’s a beauty sent from Arapahoe, Nebraska in 1913, carrying a message of  “Hearty Greetings.”  This postcard is embossed and shows a little scene of a cottage by a lake or river, with some purple hills and a blue sky in the background, framed by a wreath of alternating dark and light blue forget-me-nots, with some larger blue flowers happily appearing out from the sides. Underneath it all is a gold-tone rectangular bar.

This is another in the Lena Davis collection, and the address shows:  “Miss Lena Davis, Almena, Kans.  R.F. D.”

The sender wrote:  “Aug. 24, 1913. I expect you thought I didnt get your card But I did thank you for sending It. I had some pictures taken at Harry Summers[?] and will send you one If they are any good. You ask last time you wrote how I and E. was getting along/ well we are getting along fine.  – as ever P. C.[?]”

Divided back, embossed, used postcard. Postmarked August 26, 1913 from Arapahoe, Nebraska. Publisher unknown. Series or number 567.

Price:  $5.00

May You Be As Happy…

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“May you be as happy yourself

As you’d like to see anybody else.”

 

This postcard shows a lovely vista of water and shore artistically draped by red flowers and with the above verse. This is the second posted for “The Lena Davis Postcard Collection.” Addressed to:  “Miss Lena Davis, Almena Kan.”  The sender wrote:

“Long Island. Sept. 2   Hello how you [?] am fine and dandy. got home all right had some bad luck while I was gone. I guess you have heard about it, to bad you didn’t have my thing[?] to come for ha, ha. well [we’ll?] come again. say I have gained one pound in 2 days – that is picking up [?]”

This is the third of three in the sort of “mini-look” at an unknown publisher (see the two previous posts) and E. Nash, a known postcard publisher but for whom not much is known. So, here you can see the Nash logo on the front – capital “N” in a triangle, and “Copyright E. Nash” next to the spiral design in the back header surrounding the “C” in Post Card. As previously mentioned, the same postcard header minus the Nash copyright appears on postcards with publisher or printer logo capital “A” or perhaps two capital “A”s inside a circle. The previous postcard submitted on this website is dated 1910 and this one’s dated 1913, so one might surmise that, sometime between the two dates, E. Nash bought out the person or company that was initially using this postcard header, or maybe just bought the rights to the design. I don’t know if there were any other publishers, besides the two in question, who also used this same header, but I haven’t seen any yet. More research needs to be done and more dates looked at on more postcards.

Divided back, embossed, used postcard. Postmarked September 3, 1913 from Long Island, Kansas. Publisher:  E. Nash. Series or number G 10.

Price:  $6.00

Greetings From Holbrook

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“Holbrook Nebr, Sept 29, 1912. Dear cousen. I got your card last night and was glad to here from you glad your horse are get better. mine are all right yet. The cab[?] is buck yet some. I ame go to try and get it in time this week some time if I can and if i get it to working all right i ame come down sunday so i think can get there and less some happen so i cant leave. your cousen  J W C”

Addressed to:  “Miss Lena Davis, Almena, Kansas”

What was it that was bucking yet some? It sounds like it’s a vehicle that’s not running right, and if so, how do you like that for a horse type expression for a car? As, here we are in 1912, in that transitional period in rural America when the car was still in the process of becoming the established mode of transportation. Also, the distance between Holbrook, Nebraska and Almena, Kansas is about fifty miles, so it would seem like it would be too long of a trip to take by horse, for someone that is very busy making a living farming.

The front side of the card shows a red rose, framed in gold tone, surrounded by an embossed pink and white roses design, white border and lettering at the bottom that says “Greetings From ____” where J. W. has written “Holbrook.” The overall framing (because of the diagonal lines in the corners) resembles a carved wooden frame where the frame juts out and the center part with the rose is flat against the wall. Not that this is anything earth shattering, but I just think that the glimpses into the artists’ ideas for the postcards are interesting.

Divided back, embossed, used postcard. Postmarked in Omaha, date not appearing, approx. September 30, 1912. Publisher:  KLC or KL Company? Series 153.

May The Golden Sunrise . . .

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“Holbrook Dec. 11, 1912. Dear cousen. I got home all right and found ever thing all right to. I got home at haft past five. I thought it was to be snow storm be fore wood get home. I dont no wheather I told you to write or not. your cousen   J W Carter”

Addressed to:  “Miss Lena Davis, Almena, Kansas”

You can see where J. W. had started to put something like “write soon”  but then changed his mind while wondering whether he had already asked that of cousin Lena before he left.

On the front is a small, muted country scene of a golden sunrise reflected off of a lake or pond, a rustic fence in the foreground and a castle ruin type building in the background. There is a branch with blue forget-me-not type flowers artistically displayed behind the “painting.”  The card has a gold border, and shows the lovely sentiment below:

“May the golden sunrise bring

happiness into every day

of your life.”

Divided back, embossed, used postcard. Postmarked December 11, 1912 in Holbrook, Nebraska. Publisher:  E. Nash. Series G-15.

Price:  $5.00