Wishing You Easter Grace

Divided back, embossed postcard. Postmarked March 22, 1910 from Redwood City, California. Publisher:  International Art Publishing Co. Printed in Germany. Series 1140.

Price:  $4.00

Hmmm, I had thought I had posted all the cards in The Ethel Main Collection, and glad to find out not, in a way. Though that’s proof that some re-organizing needs to be done. (Mentally adding this thought to that long to-do list that’s floating somewhere out there in the ether. 😉 All things in good time, though.) And here’s a beautiful angel for Easter….. she’s here to comfort us, if needed, and maybe remind us of all the good things (no matter our beliefs) that exist that can’t always be seen. I think she has a serene look (then again she is an angel, so that’s a given, probably 🙂 ) Love those wings, too.

Addressed to:   “Miss Ethel Main, 299 Sunol St, San Jose Cal”

The sender wrote:   “Expect me down to see you Sat. night  EM”

Holiday Wishes For Verna Watkins

Divided back, embossed postcard. Postmarked December 22, 1909, Dayton, Indiana. Printed in Germany.

Price:  $12.00

“Dear Verna – I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Lizzie Goldsberry.”

Addressed to:   “Miss Verna Watkins, Lafayette Ind. R.F.D. No 4.”

Here’s our second angel-tree-deer postcard (see prior post). Our angel in this one is again barefoot in the snow, but this time with wings very visible, and it’s a beautiful scene with wonderful color variation for the snow…dolls in the deer’s “saddle” baskets…church and sunset in background.

There’s an Elizabeth A. Goldsberry showing up in 1909 in Lafayette, Indiana at R.F.D. 3 and she is probably the sender of this card, and a Peter with wife Lizzie at R.F.D. 24 in Dayton, Indiana from the same city directory record.

Verna Watkins, is probably the daughter of Ray and Sadie Watkins, who appears with her parents and older brother Ernest on the 1910 Federal Census for Perry Township, Tippecanoe County. According to this record Verna was born in Indiana, about 1899. Perry is located just north of Dayton, both being located in the Lafayette vicinity.

Sources:  R. L. Polk & Co.’s Lafayette Directory with Tippecanoe County, 1907. p. 538. Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995.

Year: 1910; Census Place: Perry, Tippecanoe, Indiana; Roll: T624_381; Page: 7A; Enumeration District: 0177; FHL microfilm: 1374394. (Ancestry.com).

A Merry Christmas From J. F. Dodd in 1906

Divided back, unused, embossed postcard, 1906. Publisher unknown. Series 108.

Price:  $7.00

A merry Christmas

This card, probably printed in Germany, shows an angel in a flowing pink gown carrying a small evergreen through the forest. Accompanying her is a deer bringing Christmas presents. True, we don’t see wings for the angel but then she is barefoot in the snow ( 🙂 this line strikes me funny for some reason) but anyway angel seems to be indicated. And many other cards can be found with this type of angel-tree-deer theme. (We have another one that we’ll put up next.) But underneath this beautiful scene is something that might be easily missed:  Two seated gnome-like characters (!) appear in the yellow area, like bookends only looking the wrong way.

As for the names on the back:  the card was from J. F. Dodd, Christmas 1906, for Stanley….Tisette/Tintle/Tintte…or ? His surname is pretty hard to read.

Easter Blessing To Hannah From Genevieve

Easter Blessing To Hannah From Genevieve pc1Easter Blessing To Hannah From Genevieve pc2

Here’s another beautiful Easter card; this one showing a dark-haired angel holding a book, and gazing down to her right. She is situated in the center of a silver cross with ornate scroll work and the unfurled message,  “Easter Blessing.”  The publisher included a space for “To” and “From” to be written in by the sender. So, it was Hannah White that sent this card to Genevieve Julian.

The card was addressed,  “Miss Hannah White, Oakland Cal. # 1201 Alice St.”

The outgoing postal mark shows Fruto, Cal. Fruto is an unincorporated community in Glenn County; about 14 miles northwest of the city of Willows.

There is a “Jenevieve” Julian, born July 1875 in California, appearing on the 1900 Federal Census for Glenn County, CA. This record shows she was married to Lee Julian, and they were staying with his brother, William Julian. So, Genevieve would have been about age 30 when she sent this postcard to Hannah…As for Hannah, she does show up on the 1906 city directory at 1201 Alice Street, but no census records were found with the same address.

Undivided back, used postcard. Postmarked April 13, 1906 from Oakland, California. Publisher:  International Art Publishing Co., New York. Series 218. Printed in Germany.

Price:  $10.00

Sources:  Fruto. n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruto,_California. (accessed April 5. 2015).

Year: 1900; Census Place: Township 3, Glenn, California; Roll: 86; Page: 5B; Enumeration District: 0015; FHL microfilm: 1240086. (Ancestry.com)

Dilworth’s Coffee

Dilworths Coffee tc1Dilworths Coffee tc2

Trade Card circa 1884 – 1888.  Size:  About 3 and 1/4 x 2 and 1/2″

Price:  $10.00

Old trade card for the Dilworth Brothers Company, which was located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This one shows shows an angel in a fur-trimmed coat, carrying a large mail pouch, delivering the daily postals to a young woman who’s just answered the door. There is snow on the ground, and the calendar month of February is printed at the top. As one can well imagine, trade cards like these were a great marketing scheme, to keep people coming back to get the other eleven months of the year, or the rest of the countries of Europe or for whatever other theme was being used. Dilworth’s advertised here that  “No color-poisoned, stained or damaged Coffees are ever used in it’s production.”  I don’t know what was meant by “color-poisoned” (yikes) and did not find any other online references to this term; hopefully clarification will show up in later research. I did find a similar old trade card (for Arbuckle’s) that mentioned coffee beans being glazed with a mixture of egg and confectioner’s sugar. The egg maybe as a binder for the sugar or for shine, but the sugar was to close the pores of the beans in order to preserve the flavor. The gold coffee urn in the trade card was Dilworth’s symbol and is placed here (charmingly slightly off-kilter) with it’s feet in the snow.

As for the manufacturer of this trade card, the small print at the bottom on the front shows Sackett, Wilhelms & Betzig, 45-51 Rose St. (New York, NY.) This was a lithography company and shows up in the New York City directories from at least 1884 – 1888.

Sources:  Trow’s City Directory Co.’s Trow’s New York City Directories for 1884-’85, Vol. 98 p. 1520. (Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989)

Trow’s City Directory Co.’s Trow’s New York City Directories for year ending May 1, 1888, Vol. 101. p. 1714. (Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989)