New Year Moon

New Year Moon pc1New Year Moon pc2

Divided back, embossed, used postcard. Outgoing postmark January 5, 1908 from Red Bluff, California. Incoming postmark January 6, 1908 in Stockton, California. Publisher:  The International Postal Card Company, Chicago.

Price:  $10.00

Running a little behind with getting posts up, so here’s another for the new year; heavily embossed with  “A Happy New Year,”  a very expressive crescent moon, and a nice geometric-style border. The sender wrote:

“Dear Georgia Belle. Recd both your letters. The postal that was written you had some truth in it and when I hear from Henleyville I will write you a long letter. Dont you worry about matters. If I dont get a letter Monday night I will write out there and then write you all about it. Give my love to all the folks. Good by, Aunt Lala.   That postal was more to hurt you than anything. She came up here but is in Henleyville now.”

The card is addressed to:  “Georgia Belle Blanchard, Stockton, California, H.S.B.C.”

Well, here’s a postcard message with some drama behind it! We hope that everything got sorted out and, most of all, that all hurt feelings were mended.

Henleyville is located in Tehama County, about 20 miles southwest of Red Bluff, but a quick online search is not showing any facts regarding current population. Around the time this postcard was written, it looks like the land supported the raising of poultry and sheep, according to a couple of old journals from 1903 and 1907. I couldn’t resist displaying this 1907 article (The American Sheep-Breeder and
Wool-Grower, Volume 27
)  by D.C. Beaman which was originally published in the Denver Post. It’s an eye witness account of a BIG LEAP.

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Now on to the addressee of this postcard:  A record of California births shows Georgia Belle Blanchard, born December 12, 1888 in Tehama County. Her parents are listed as Albert Simon Blanchard and Mary Catherine Burress. The 1900 Federal Census taken in Corning, Tehama County, shows Albert, born Maine, July 1849, occupation Farmer; his wife Mary K., born Missouri, January 1856; their daughters Nannie L. born December 1885, Laura[?] born July 1887, and Georgia Belle, confirming the birth record date here on this census. The Blanchard daughters were all born in California. Also in the household are Hugh Delaney, John Benson (both doing farm labor) and Jackson LeClair, machinist for the railroad. A little further up the page is an entry for another Blanchard family, that of Simon, wife Lura A. (the possible sender of our postcard?) and their children, Judson B., Lura B., Marie and Albert L. Blanchard.

On a last note, what is the “H.S.B.C.” in the postcard address? Wondering if this could stand for Humphreys Stockton Business College, which doesn’t seem to have been the official name of said college but Georgia Belle does show up in a number of city directories as Bookkeeper. Or if it was H.L.B.C. still nothing definite shows up online. Hmmm, a mystery.

Sources:  The American Sheep-Breeder and
Wool-Grower, Volume 27.
January 15, 1907. p. 568. Web accessed January 8, 2015. (Google eBook)

California, Births and Christenings, 1812-1988. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013. (Ancestry.com)

Year: 1900; Census Place: Corning, Tehama, California; Roll: 115; Page: 3B; Enumeration District: 0180; FHL microfilm: 1240115. (Ancestry.com)

Humphreys College. n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphreys_College (accessed January 9, 2015).