Mystery Language

Posted on January 16, 2018 by Annieoakley

Divided back, unused, Real Photo Postcard. AZO stamp box. Circa 1904 – 1918. Printed in Canada.

Availability Status: SOLD

The snow is piled up in front of two stylish ladies (check out all the trim on the young woman’s coat) who have posed for this photo. Their dog is beside them, and prominent in the background is what looks to be a church, just from the shape of the windows, and next to the church, a house. The branches of the bare trees are beautiful in this scene, too. Possibly the postcard photo originated in the same area as the sender’s address, so the card may be of historical interest for Saskatoon history buffs, as well as any Abrams descendants.

Baffled….for now

But the note from the sender of this card is a stumper. What language is it written in? Deciphering can be tricky for old postcards in other languages due to abbreviations and sometimes misspelled words or former spellings of words used, let alone a person’s particular style of cursive, although the name and address are easily read on this one as: “Mrs. Wm. Abrams, Saskatoon, Sask.” Here’s the puzzle of words, flipped upright:

Without being able to decipher but one or two words on the back (if that) we turned to searching for the receiver of this card to find their native tongue as stated on census records. There is a William Abrams and his wife Maria and their children listed on the 1911 and 1916, residing in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. This would coincide with the postcard date of circa 1904 to 1918, per the AZO stamp box (all four triangles pointing upward, along with divided back starting December 1903 in Canada.) William was born in Russia and Maria in Germany. William’s declaration of intent, in his U. S. naturalization process, appears to show that he was born in Ekaterinoslav, Russia, which is now called Dnipro and lies within Ukraine….No other possible Abrams were found to fit our postcard, so this is all good info, even though it doesn’t help us figure out the writing on the back. Hopefully, we’ll get some help on the translation from somewhere!

Sources: Year: 1911; Census Place: 30 – Saskatoon Ward 1, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Page: 26; Family No: 236. (Ancestry.com).

Year: 1916; Census Place: Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, 03B; Roll: T-21944; Page: 22; Family No: 247. (Ancestry.com).

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, D.C.; Naturalization Records of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, Central Division (Los Angeles), 1887-1940; Microfilm Roll: 21; Microfilm Serial: M1524.

Dnipro. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnipro (accessed January 16, 2018).

Some Edison Girls

Posted on December 17, 2017 by Annieoakley

Divided back, Real Photo Postcard, unused with writing. Circa 1907 – 1918. AZO stamp box.

Price: $5.00

We’ve got sort of a cold weather theme going here for December before we move on to Christmas…..This charming postcard was promising as far as finding names and a location, due to the description on the back. But come to find out the names written there are pretty hard to read, with the exception of “Mrs. Gilkie” – she is the lady on the left. Next to her is “Ma” (the sender’s mother probably) and the other two, too difficult to read. It appears the card was addressed to either Dara or Dora. As for Edison…maybe it’s the name of their employer, such as Edison Electric or Edison National Bank. The other possibility is a town name, but Gilkie didn’t come up in the various towns named Edison, or even nearby counties, so that is not so likely. Neither did any matches come up for Edison as a maiden name, married to a Gilkie. This one will go in our mystery category with the hopes that someone will recognize any of the four beautiful women on this card.

W. J. & Family At Old Home On Colorado

Posted on November 19, 2017 by Annieoakley

Photo from 1911 printed to canvas on wooden board and frame

Price: $20.00 Size: 10 x 7 and 3/4″

Condition: Some scratches, markings and canvas tears

Surname mystery

This was an unusual find at, it was either an antique store or a thrift store. (Yikes, I guess this means I have to start writing them all down.) So, it was somebody’s cool idea to take an old family photo (their family or one they just found and liked) and have the image transferred to a canvas (or canvas-like) type of surface. It was then glued onto a thin board on a wooden frame, so that it could go up on that person’s wall. (Now it’s on mine.) It’s the fourth for me, of those that are not family but have become family. A couple have names but nobody’s claimed them yet, another has no name, and then there’s this one: What in the world is this family’s surname? Ferris, Harris, Ferix misspelled as Farrix (can’t find surname Farrix). Even with a magnifying glass, and in the sunlight, it’s hard to say. The location could be almost anywhere, too, since it appears to say “on Colorado” rather than in Colorado or on the Colorado, as in River. Well, but whoever they are, they’re a beautiful group of seven people and two dogs (didn’t the dogs do well to not move too much while the photo was being taken? 🙂 ) Love that wooden fence, and the porch running the length of the house. The home seems to have been pretty big, and it’s rustic-looking. Was it originally a log cabin? We can’t see the details. You’ll notice a windmill behind the house on the right. But, it really strikes me with an impression so significant, a feeling that we could wave to the family and they’d wave back across this current span (insignificant, really) of six and one hundred (going old-school here) years.

Cay Ricker, Mobile, Alabama

Posted on September 4, 2017 by Annieoakley

Oval photo of Cay Ricker. Circa 1908 – 1909. Brown’s Art Studio. Mobile, Alabama.

Price: $15.00 Size including cardboard matting: About 3 and 1/2 x 7″

An oval portrait of a handsome young man, identified on the back as , “Cay Ricker, cousin of Lula Gentry.” His jacket has a military look to it. (This seemed a natural segue from the prior post. 😉 ) The photography studio name and location is embossed on the front of the frame: Brown’s Art Studio.

Brown’s Art Studio was found in city directories in 1908 at 21 N. Conception. The 1909 shows this address under photographer name J. F. Brown.

Cay’s ancestry is more of a puzzle, but his cousin Lula is possibly the Sarah Lula Ricker who married Starling R. Gentry (parents of Carrie Gentry, the little girl in the next post). Cay, if we’re reading it correctly from the back of the photo, could be a middle name (very common in the Southern states) or a nickname.

Sources: Delchamps’ Greater Mobile City Directory, 1908. p. 938. Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995.

Delchamps’ Greater Mobile City Directory, 1909. p. 981. Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995.

Hen And Chicks On The March

Posted on April 15, 2017 by Annieoakley

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.

View From The Pier, 1930s

Posted on April 1, 2017 by Annieoakley

Real Photo Postcard, cropped. ECK stamp box. Circa 1930s.

Price: $1.00 Size: About 4 and 5/8 x 3 and 1/2″

This is a mystery spot. Okay, we’re off to drive up and down the West Coast of the U.S….leaving now, with digitized photo in hand for comparison 😉 (Wouldn’t that be nice!) Seems like that’s almost the only way to pinpoint the location of this photo and we’d be peering through the layers of development down thru the years, too….but, maybe someone will recognize this place. We hope so! Guessing it’s West Coast, but that’s just a guess. The stamp box on the back, per Playle’s, is circa 1930 – 1950, but the vehicles look more like ’20s and ’30s rather than later. Some signs on the buildings are readable: We see a hotel, a building with big lettering advertising “Refreshments” and toward our left…Cabins.

Cabin(s)…backwards…

This is odd: The one sign showing “Cabins” that appears backwards makes sense since the lettering stands alone above the building its perched on and we’re just looking at it from the other side; the other, “Cabin” appearing lower, just further left, looks like it’s painted backwards on the side of a building. Since that doesn’t make sense, then is it also a stand-alone type of sign? Or, could it be a reflection? Or maybe our photo is two photos spliced together, one reversed? But that seems highly unlikely.

Source: “Real Photo Stamp Boxes, D-E.” playle.com. (accessed April 1, 2017)

To Miss Echo Grimes

Posted on October 16, 2016 by Annieoakley

Divided back, embossed, used postcard. Postmarked November 2, 1907 from Tremont, Illinois. Publisher: A & S [?], New York. Art Series No. 178. Printed in Germany.

Price: $12.00

As in the prior post, one of the subjects in this postcard has an unusual first name.

Addressed to: “Miss Echo Grimes, Milford Ind. Kos. Co.”

That’s Kosciusko County in the abbreviation above. There’s also an “unincorporated community” named Milford in Dekatur County.

The sender writes: “address Mae Rassi, Tremont Ill. c/o D. Getz. Dear Echo, How are you. I am still at Ill. Think I will stay till Christmas. How is your Grandma tell her Hello. You had asked me to send you a postal. So I thought I would. Let me hear from you.”

Echo (love the name!) shows up on the 1910 Federal Census living with her grandmother, Mary A. Gilkenson, mother Minnie W. Grimes, and her younger sister[?] Helen Grimes. On this census Echo is about age 18 and working for the telephone company. The Indiana Marriage records reveals she was Mary Echo Grimes, born December 10, 1891, Milford, Indiana, parents Clem Grimes and Minnie (stated “Winma Gilkison” on the indexed record.) Echo married Charles N. Thomas on February 10, 1911, in Elkhart, Indiana.

Mae Rassi would require more research but from some quick searches it appears she might have been an in-law to the Getz family.

Heart-shaped A & S N.Y. publisher logo…

The publisher is a bit of a mystery. Nothing found yet for what appears to be “A & S” of New York.

Sources: Year: 1910; Census Place: Milford Ward 3, Kosciusko, Indiana; Roll: T624_358; Page: 7B; Enumeration District: 0085; FHL microfilm: 1374371. (Ancestry.com)

Original data: Indiana, Marriages. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013. (Ancestry.com)

Old School At The Corner Of 30th Street And….

Posted on June 13, 2016 by Annieoakley

Divided back, unused, Real Photo Postcard. Circa 1910s -1920s. AZO stamp box.

Price: $8.00

A Real Photo Postcard from maybe the 1910s – ’20s of a parochial school somewhere in the United States (per the American flags in the windows that the kids made.) One figures it was probably not taken in the Southwest, due to the building style: brick and lots of them, a four-story building. As for the parochial, there’s the cross at the top. We see streetcar tracks, a number of kids (and you can see how the camera couldn’t capture the images of the ones in motion) and a few adults. There are two major clues to the name and location of this school, which both remain a mystery: the nun in conversation with the policeman or fire chief – her style of habit should identify the religious order, but nothing was found online; and the street sign. Maddeningly (!) 30th St. is easily read but the almost-discernible cross street….what is it?

Le Grand Chef Deskaheh

Posted on June 4, 2016 by Annieoakley

Divided back, unused. French postcard. Circa 1917 – 1925.

Price: $15.00

This one definitely ties in to the previous post: An old French postcard in black and white, of a painting by N. George of Chief Deskaheh, the president of the Iroquois Council of Six Nations from 1917 – 1925:

“Le grand Chef Deskaheh. Délégué et président du Conseil des Six Nations Iroquoises.”

See the Wiki entry on Deskaheh or Levi General (1873 – 1925) which includes the photo below taken 1922. The painting shown on our postcard greatly resembles the photo (courtesy Wikipedia, originally from the British newspaper The Graphic) so may have been created around the same time.

See The Last Speech of Deskaheh for more.

But since we like to solve mysteries here, who was the artist (peintre or painter) N. George? Hmmm, for now, this question remains a mystery. Below, an article from the Pittsburg Daily Post dated December 17, 1922.

Sources: Deskaheh. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deskaheh (accessed June 4, 2016).

The Last Speech of Deskaheh. Two Row Times. (accessed June 4, 2016).

“Protests Raid of Old Domain.” Pittsburg Daily Post. Sunday, December 17, 1922. p. 1 (newspapers.com)

Srdečné Přání

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Annieoakley

Divided back, artist-signed, unused postcard. Stamp box shows “Made in Tchécoslovakia.” Publisher: F.O.P. Series or number 21.

Price: $10.00

A Czech postcard expressing “Srdečné přání ” or “Heartfelt wishes.” This may be from the same era (1930s?) as the card in the prior post, and is also an artist-signed card. The artist’s initials show on the front as “K.Š.”

This is another for the mystery category, the publisher with the logo of a pine or fir tree, above the initials, “F.O.P.” in a circle, and with three shield-looking emblems, was not found, nor were any references to the artist. We’ll be on the lookout for more at the next big postcard show coming up in April.

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