“Ocean Views. 12 for 10cts.”
Just a little card that must have once been part of a set. The ocean view part was glued onto the card. It wasn’t meant to be opened all the way, and at some point the ocean view part broke off at the hand. Someone had gone to the trouble to cut out a picture of a flower and glue it to the back.
Size: 1 and 3/4 x 3 and 1/4″
“With Heartiest Christmas Greetings and best wishes for the New Year”
An odd kind of Christmas card and the worse for wear, but the colors are great. It was either from, or to Ruth Cochran. Nothing on the back except for someone’s arithmetic.
Size: About 5 x 4″
“Roundup in Lordsburg, New Mexico”
Souvenir card from Lordsburg, New Mexico of cowboy and cattle out on the range on thin copper. Nothing on the back. I’m not sure exactly how the card was made, maybe the black drawing was stamped onto the copper and the colors then filled in. This card reminds me of the old cowboy song Dad used to sing entitled “Dogie’s Lament.” The first part goes:
As I was a-walkin’ one morning for pleasure
I spied a young cowboy a-ridin’ along
Well his hat was shoved back and his spurs was a-jinglin’
And as he was ridin’ he was singin’ this song:
(Chorus) Whoopie-ti-yi-yo git along little dogies
It’s your misfortune and none of my own
Whoopie ti-yi-yo git along little dogies
You know that Montana will be your new home
I found these and other cowboy song lyrics online under a song lyric collection entitled “Cowboy Poetry & Songbook.” I remember another line from a song Dad sang that went “I’m a leavin’ Cheyenne, goin’ back to Montan, git along little dogies, git along,” which I thought was part of “Dogie’s Lament” but maybe it was a variation of a line from “I Ride an Old Paint” or “Old Paint.”
According to the “Cowboy Poetry & Songbook” source listed below, “Dogie’s Lament” was an old cowboy poem taken from the “1910 Lomax Anthology” and put to music by Oscar Julius Fox in 1927, who also composed the music for “Old Paint.” “Dogie’s Lament” was recorded by over 34 major artists. Lomax was Mississippi folklorist, John Avery Lomax (1867-1948.)
Sources: http://www.nps.gov/grko/historyculture/upload/songbook.pdf
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/lohtml/lojohnbio.html
This photo has a glossy finish to it, and is not on very heavy paper. It seems like it was possibly cut out of a magazine or book. The coloring is great. And if we could only rotate the photo sideways like in a satellite view, we could read the advertising on the wall on the left, for clues. But the green and black sign looks like it says “Nuts” and underneath that the word on the left looks like “Milk” but really, who knows? The location is a mystery! Perhaps that is Earle W. standing on the far right, and he signed the photo (just joking), but really, it is interesting that there is a name at the bottom. Who was Earle W. and why was this photo significant for him? …Looking at the photo with a magnifying glass, it looks like that might be the number 44 appearing twice on the streetcar, on the left and the right in the bright green area….
With a little more searching (photos of suspension bridges) it became apparent that, of course, this is an old (hand-colored?) photo of the entrance to the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, that spans the Ohio River, between Cincinnati, Ohio and Covington, Kentucky. This photo would have been taken from the Kentucky side. I couldn’t resist leaving the above paragraph the way it is, as it was great fun to solve the mystery, and learn more about the bridge. At the time it was constructed, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, and was first crossed by pedestrians on December 1, 1866. A Wikipedia entry states that over 166,000 people crossed the bridge in the first two days it was open to foot traffic. After some finishing touches it was opened officially January 1, 1867. The bridge was at first just known locally as “The Suspension Bridge” then as “The Covington and Cincinnati Bridge” until 1984 when the name was changed to honor it’s designer. John A. Roebling was also the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge. Finding out the location and name of this bridge was exciting for another reason: This would have been the very bridge that John Voss crossed to court his future-bride Louisa Moormann (This blog author’s great-grandparents.) John was from Covington and Louisa from Cincinnati, and they married in Cincinnati in 1880.
More mystery solving: After looking again at the advertisement on the left in this photo, having searched under milk companies and dairies in Covington to no avail, it became apparent that the first word really didn’t look like “Nuts” but more like “Hoits.” Some more online searching and then “Eureka!” This was an advertisement for playwright Charles H. Hoyt’s musical comedy “A Milk White Flag.” The flag-shaped design in the advertisement is the clincher. This comedy was either written or first produced in, most sources say 1894, so this photo would have been taken in 1894 or sometime afterward, maybe up until around the turn of the century, judging by the clothes of the people in the photo.
As to the streetcar in the photo, this would have been part of the South Covington and Cincinnati Railway Company, commonly known as the “Green Line” because of the color of the cars. So, it seems that the coloring of the streetcar in this photo was not just done arbitrarily. According to author Tom Dunham from his book Covington, Kentucky, A Historical Guide, the horse-drawn trolleys for the Green Line, gave way to the electric in 1890.
Size: About 5 and 1/2 x 3 and 1/2″
Price: $20.00
Sources and further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Roebling_Suspension_Bridge
http://www.cincinnati-transit.net/suspension.html
http://www.nkyviews.com/kenton/kenton_cov_sb_approaches.htm
The A to Z of American Theatre: Modernism by James Fisher and Felicia Hardison Londré. 2008. Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Covington, Kentucky. A Historical Guide by Tom Dunham. Published by Author House, Bloomington, Indiana, 2007. Ref. appears on page 65.
Victorian-Era card
Price: $10.00 Size: About 4 and 1/2 x 2 and 7/8″
An unusual, really cool, antique print of a woman’s head on a butterfly’s body. She wears a green bow around her neck. What would her companions in the background look like if we could see them up-close?
Beautiful old card showing roses in the foreground, halfway bordering a cozy winter scene of a house and surrounding buildings topped with snow. Note the inviting path leading through the open gate to the house, how the color in the yellow rose blends into the sky, and the wonderful outer scroll work white-on-white design, reminding one of the different shades of white in winter. The back of the card is plain but shows some old glue marks, indicating someone else had loved this card, too. Perhaps it had been saved in a scrap book.
Embossed, about 4 and 1/4 x 6″
“En Souvenir du Jour de notre Ordination. P. V. Frecenon. Detroit, 18 9bre 95”
Translated as “In Memory of the Day of our Ordination” Signed P.V. Frecenon, November 18, 1895.
There are many entries in the Detroit City Directories for a Rev. Joseph Frecenon, who appears to be the same person as the Rev. Francis J. Frecenon, but we would think that this would not be the same Fr. Frecenon that signed this card. According to a Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin biography, the Rev. Joseph Frecenon was born in Martinique, West Indies, July 27, 1851. He was ordained October 28, 1874 in Paris. He was at Cellule (France) for one year. He spent sixteen years at “St. Pierre, Miquelon” (St. Pierre and Miquelon are two French territorial islands south of the coast of Newfoundland), after that was in Beauvais, France. He was then assistant pastor at St. Joachim Parish in Detroit. (St. Joaquim is now a closed parish. 1885 – 1989) After serving at St. Joachim he went to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and was pastor there at Holy Ghost Church.
In September 2013, I contacted the Archdiocese of Detroit for help on solving the P. V. Frecenon mystery. I was graciously contacted back by their Archive Dept. and informed that in 1895 Detroit did not have it’s own seminary, so priests serving in Detroit at that time would have been ordained elsewhere. In addition, I was informed that our Fr. Frecenon did not end his ministry in Detroit, as the Archdiocese has no file on him. P. V. Frecenon’s identity remains a mystery for now, and this is a prime example, especially relevant in the field of genealogy, that things are not always as they appear.
The date that Father Frecenon signed the card was November 18, 1895, “9bre” being at that time a standard abbreviation in french for November. (7bre – septembre, 8bre – octobre, 9bre – novembre, 10bre – decembre). I will have to search for the keystroke to make the “bre” smaller with the underline as it was actually written. The card was found in an antique store in Dearborn, Michigan.
Size of card: 4 x 6 1/2 inches
Sources: U. S. City Directories 1821 – 1989 (Ancestry.com)
Chippewa County Wisconsin: Past and Present: A Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Achievement. Volume II. The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, Chicago, 1913. (Googlebooks online)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit, Archives Department. Detroit, Michigan, email contact September-October 2013.