Monthly Archives: December 2017

Bounteous Gifts For Sadie Barbettini

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Divided back, artist-signed, embossed, unused postcard. Painting copyright by Frances Brundage. Printed in Germany. Publisher unknown. Series or number 219. Circa 1907 – 1914.

Price:  $10.00

A Merry Christmas.

Bounteous gifts from heaven’s choicest store

May you find Christmas morning,

showered at your door.”

Addressed to:  “Miss Sadie Barbettini, Guadalupe.”  The sender wrote:

“Accept my little present and my wish for a merry Christmas and happy new year, you[r] loving cousin Rose d’ “

Sadie Barbettini (spelled Barbetini) shows up in the 1900 Federal Census for Township 9, Santa Barbara County, California with her mother Mary P. Barbettini and older sisters Emma and Minnie. Sadie was born September 1895 according to this census. A number of earlier pages on this census show the name crossed off township name of Guadalupe, so this census should be the correct record for Sadie.

The 1910 census appears also for the family, still in Township 9. The girls’ mother is now Mary Jenkins, widowed, and she has two additional children, John and Mary Ann Jenkins.

Sources:  Frances Brundage. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Brundage (accessed December 20, 2017).

Year: 1900; Census Place: Township 9, Santa Barbara, California; Roll: 110; Page: 8A; Enumeration District: 0254; FHL microfilm: 1240110. (Ancestry.com).

Year: 1910; Census Place: Township 9, Santa Barbara, California; Roll: T624_105; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 0185; FHL microfilm: 1374118. (Ancestry.com).

Federal Pure Food Company Of Chicago

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Federal Pure Food Company Holiday Card. Circa 1919 – 1920s.

Availability Status:  SOLD             Size:  6 and 1/4 x 4 and 7/8″

‘Tis the season….for shopping! Here’s a beautiful Christmas/New Year’s card, probably from the 1920s, showing a nostalgic 19th-century scene of busy holiday shoppers on a snow-covered street.

“We extend to our friends and customers our hearty good wishes for the Holiday Season and may the New Year bring an abundance of Happiness and Prosperity.

Federal Pure Food Company. Chicago, Illinois.”

Does anyone remember any Federal Pure Food Co. labels on maybe vanilla extract or other extracts used in baking? Could be a wacked-out 😉 memory on my part, but I seem to recall old extract bottles in the back of our spice cupboard as a child with this company name. If so, the extracts were already old as the last advertisement found for the company was in 1935. And according to another news clipping, they established in 1895, though no references were found prior to 1919 when their sales ads begin showing up in newspapers across the country and in magazines like Popular Mechanics. Federal’s last known given address for correspondence was 2946 Lake St., Chicago, though for most of their advertised existence they were located on Archer Avenue.

Below, a clip from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 4, 1921 which listed the company as:  “The Federal Pure Food Company, 2301 – 2319 Archer Ave., Chicago, ILL. Largest packers of pure food specialties in the world.”

A Honolulu, Hawaii agent ad from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, September 23, 1921:

The ad from August 13, 1922  for “Agents” appearing in The Tampa Tribune, states the Federal Pure Food Company had been established “since 1895.”

Sources:  “When you have tried everything else.” The Pittsburgh Press, February 17, 1935. Sunday, p. 42. (Newspapers.com).

“No Dull Times In The Food Business.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 4, 1921. Sunday, p. 26. (Newspapers.com).

” ‘Federal’ Concentrated Ready-To-Cook Preparations.” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, September 23, 1921. Friday, p. 5. (Newspapers.com).

The Tampa Tribune, August 13, 1922. Sunday, p. 27. (Newspapers.com).

Glad Jul

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Divided back, unused Real Photo Postcard. Circa 1890s – 1910s.

Price:  $7.00

This postcard is addressed to:   “Matilda Pettersson”  so the assumption would be that she is not the young woman in the photo, though we can’t know for sure. But she’s beautiful and unmarried (no wedding ring) and is no doubt of Scandinavian descent. She wears a dark, long sleeved dress or skirt and blouse, with a stunning lace jabot, and is posed seated on a wicker chair. That is a photographer’s backdrop that shows the background scene of a table with flowers, rich draperies and wall mural or tapestry. Nicely done, as it’s maybe not immediately noticeable that it is a backdrop. This was given at Christmastime, with “Glad Jul”  (Merry Christmas) written in script:

Source:  Jabot (neckwear) n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabot_(neckwear) (accessed December 18, 2017).

Greetings From Mabel Crogan

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Divided back, unused, Real Photo Postcard. Circa 1910s.

Price:  $7.00

In this Real Photo Postcard two very cute blonde kids are posing standing directly in front of a beautiful two-story, wooden-sided home in the country. (Note the nice detail on the porch posts and brackets.) The location is probably Minnesota or one of the surrounding states.

The reverse shows:  “Greetings from your friend Mabel Crogan”  and addressed to  “Mrs. Johanne[?] Torkelsen.”

There are a number of Johanne or variations (Hanna, Anna, Annie) Torkelsens that might fit the for married friend of Mabel Crogan. On the other hand, we might be looking at “Mrs. Johan Torkelsen.” Crogan is also found spelled Krogan. After searching through multiple records, we can’t be sure, but one possibility may be that the photo was taken in or near Folden, Otter Tail County, Minnesota, of Mabel Crogan, born Minnesota around 1906 and brother Marvin, born Minnesota around 1907, children of John Crogan and Kristi (Joten) Crogan. This is only a guess. Below, a closeup of the kids:

Some Edison Girls

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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.

Four Varied Expressions

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Divided back, Real Photo Postcard, unused. Circa 1907 – 1917. VELOX stamp box.

Price:  $7.00

Besides the stylish winter coats and hats that these beautiful ladies are wearing, one might be struck by their expressions, each so different from one another. The eye of the beholder is purely subjective, of course, but for me, left to right of the grown women and then the little girl:  Uplifted, sardonic, distrusting and joyful….(How would you describe them?) But we’re not trying to pin a label on anyone, as for one thing, it’s just one moment in time, for another the sun was bright, and anyway it’s a good thing maybe to not feel you have to do the “automatic smile” when posing for a photo.

Confident, In An Ostrich Feather Hat

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

Price:  $10.00 

Here’s an awesome “big hat” (wide brim crowned with ostrich plume) photo of a radiant young woman, dressed warmly for the weather in a long coat, scarf and holding a muff. Note the braiding at the sleeve cuffs and note the coat buttons – too bad we can’t see more detail on the buttons – we picture them now residing in a bin in an antique store somewhere. The spring/summer look to the photographer’s backdrop is a little at odds with the lady’s cold weather outerwear, and if you look closely at the bottom of the image you can see that the floor covering had gotten mussed, revealing the type of tile on the actual flooring. Too bad there was no name written on the postcard, but these unidentified types can be wonderful for anyone researching fashion history (this would have been around 1907 through 1918, according to the AZO stamp box type that has all four triangles pointing upward.)

Reward Of Merit For Arthur Berryman

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Reward of Merit. Circa 1880s – 1890s.

Price:  $3.00         Size:  About 4 and 1/2 x 6 and 1/2″

Here’s another card from teacher to student, as a token of recognition for something well-done. No teacher’s name, but the student’s name is written on the back:  “Arthur Berryman.”  And it’s another winter scene, no action this time, well, other than the setting or rising sun, but lovely, of a large rambling home with snow laden roofs, icicles on trees, and a stream that’s not frozen, I guess, hmmm.

Reward Of Merit For Charles Schindler

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Reward of Merit. Circa 1880s – 1890s.

Price:  $10.00         Size:  About 3 and 7/8 x 5 and 1/4″

What fun! That must have been the perfect sledding hill. 😉 This really is a nice Reward of Merit card, still in decent condition. The artist and printer are unknown, but it’s lovely, with all those “snow colors” contrasting with the burnt orange jacket (and hat) and the blue trim and the brighter blue on the sled rope. And there’s a great example of gaiters, the tan leggings that button up the side. It’s tempting to try to locate which Charles Schindler received this card from which teacher N. Mulcahy, but there’s about thirty possibilities in the 1900 Federal Census records for Charles with an estimated year of birth from 1870 to 1890, so that would take way too long.

Barbara Ann Gerhart

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Divided back, unused, Real Photo Postcard. Circa December 1923.

Price:  $10.00

“Barbara Ann Gerhart. She will be 16 months old 30 of this month. She walks and sais a few words we all think she is so nice. We all enjoy that dear child, from the Gerharts”

“To Brother Herman & Alice and family.”

This charming Real Photo Postcard was never mailed but does have a Christmas sticker on it in the place of a stamp. So, it’s probable that the card was written in December, but what year? Well, just by the general look of it, it’s probably 1920s. Since the stamp box is covered by the sticker, that potential clue can’t help us, though there’s probably not anything printed there anyway, as we’ve come to find out by looking for postcard backs at Playle’s in “Unknown Manufacturers.” The match on the style indicates the time frame to be from around “unknown – 1925,” which confirms the 1920s guess as a possibility. The next clues are in the sender’s message:  Firstly, Barbara Ann will be sixteen months on the 30th of “this month,” and if the card was written in December, then her birthday is August 30th; secondly, the way the sender describes beautiful Barbara, is….a little different. We found a match in death and marriage records, and the 1930 Federal Census for Marietta, Ohio, revealing Barbara Ann Gerhart, born August 30, 1922, the adopted (now it makes sense) daughter of Walter Gerhart and Carrie (Preston) Gerhart. (The Herman and Alice reference would need a more time-consuming search to see if they were related to the Gerharts, but no other different matches were found for Barbara Ann.)

Sources:  Issue State: Ohio; Issue Date: Before 1951. Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 for Barbara G. Vanpetten.

Year: 1930; Census Place: Marietta, Washington, Ohio; Roll: 1887; Page: 17B; Enumeration District: 0023; FHL microfilm: 2341621. (Ancestry.com)    Walter E. and Carrie Gerhart   adopted daughter Barbara A. Gerhart.

Marriage Records. Ohio Marriages. Various Ohio County Courthouses. Ancestry.com. Ohio, County Marriages, 1774-1993.

“Real Photo Postcard Stamp Backs – Unknown Manufacturers.” playle.com. (accessed December 16, 2017.)