Category Archives: Holidays

Merry Christmas From Lentie

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Divided back postcard. Postmarked December 22, 1923 from Fresno, California. Series or number 30, publisher unknown.

Price:  $4.00

Another from The Alice Ellison Collection.

A Merry Christmas…..

A very nice scene on this one:  Partially framed with snow covered holly, a mother and son walk back from church. (We’ll take liberties with interpreting.) But there’s the church in the background, and the artist has conveyed, on this very small scale, a moment in time between mother and son.

Addressed to:   “Mrs. J. M. Ellison, Sacramento, Calif, 604 N. St.”

The sender wrote:   “Fresno – Sat.    Dear Aunt:-  Loyd is better today & sitting up. Oh we sure have had a time with him, as he certainly has been a sick child. He looks so bad but I feel now that the worst is all over. Cordie gets no vacation. Lots of love Lentie.”

We’ll trust that Loyd made a full recovery and was soon out playing in the Fresno sunshine!

Merry Xmas From the Harms Family

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Divided back, embossed postcard. Postmarked December 23, 1921 from Sacramento, California. Publisher unknown. Series C-368.

Price:  $1.00

Greetings for Christmas

“I wish you a bright Christmas:

May gladness, like a sail,

Carry your ship through happy seas,

And joy and hope prevail.”

Addressed to:   “Mrs Ellison, 1314 F. St, Sacramento, Calif.”

The sender wrote:   “We wish you a very Merry Xmas and Happy New Year. The Harms family.”

A one hundred and two year-old card this time, almost to the day, and it’s another from The Alice Ellison Collection. Nice calming sailboat scene, draped with holly and a peach-colored ribbon. Nice sentiments in the verse, too. (Ditto from Laurel Cottage to you all.)

Merry Xmas From Frank Bennetts

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Divided back, embossed postcard. Postmarked December 18, 1917 from Sacramento, California. Publisher unknown.

Price:  $1.00

Friendly Greetings…….To you my friend, All joy at this happy season.

Addressed to:   “Miss Ella Ellison, 1314 – F St., Sacramento, Cal.”

Signed:   “Merry Xmas. Frank Bennetts.

Christmas season is upon us again! Time has done its usual trick – lots of time, lots of time, then wham, you’re running behind. We have a number of Christmas postcards that belong to The Alice Ellison Collection. None of these Ellison cards that will be put up this year are particularly spectacular, many are beat up, but up they will go anyway, and we’ll see if we come across anything interesting in them. Personally, I will always find something….It’s a hundred and six year-old item….Enlarging the scene and getting lost in it….That bell with the holly laying in the snow – ha, somebody dropped it, I guess. And, if anyone is looking for anything from Frank Bennetts (likely of Sacramento) well, here is something – not much but it does tell us he was friends with the Ellisons, and if you’re searching it’s always nice to get another small piece of the puzzle.

And in enlarging the card to, indeed, get lost in the scene, we see an odd combo for that church – with its castle-like tower topped with the onion-like dome, and an onion dome in the back, too. So……a Russian emigrant was the artist for this one? Yeah, we think this crazy stuff. 😉

Easter Egg Lithograph

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Egg-shaped lithograph. Publisher unknown. Circa 1880’s- 1910.

Price:  $5.00           Size:  2 and 5/8 x 4″

Well! Holidays catch me behind lately with posting, so this one was for Easter, which was yesterday. (Happy belated.) This is a pretty cool one, one you don’t see everyday, and obviously someone else thought so, too. It was found in an antique store in Nevada:  In pink on white, a couple of decorated bands and then a sunburst at one end and star-shape on the other (on the star I keep flashing back to the drug store, circa 1960’s, begging my mom for one of those plastic balls that always seemed to have a similar design at each end). The egg is cracked to reveal a new day dawning (in general and for Easter) on a lake scene in the mountains……with a small, simple house and a much grander church, gleaming and beckoning from the other side of the water. It’s really not very high-end work but it’s the idea that makes it. Is that supposed to be a figure of a person, standing, looking out across the water? And note the use of the shadows on the egg, to give it dimension.

With Every Fond Wish

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Divided Back, embossed postcard. Copyright 1908, Julius Bien & Co., New York. Postmarked March 15, 1909 from Kansas City, Missouri. “St. Patrick” Series Number 740.

Price:  $12.00

Just realized we missed posting a St. Valentine’s card last month, oops! But here’s a gorgeous one for St. Pat’s Day.

Addressed to:   “Miss Elizabeth Waite, Salina, Kansas. Hoyt-West Millinery Co.”

The sender wrote:   “Only a postal from Myrtle. I leave here Monday eve for Wellington. Hope you are all O.K.”

Elizabeth Waite, according the the 1910 Federal Census was a milliner, so this card was sent c/o her employer. She is the daughter of Isaac Smith Waite and Lizzie Hogle, born native to Ohio. Elizabeth was born in Kansas, October 19, 1884.

In searching for Hoyt-West Millinery, among other mentions, we’ve clipped part of the “Town Gossip” section of The National Field, March 5, 1908. (How’s that for a pretty close date to our postcard?) The interesting thing is the mention of a Myrtle Wilcox accepting a position with Hoyt-West. So, this could be the same Myrtle that sent this card.

Another clip below; this one mentioning Elizabeth:

The Hoyt-West Millinery Company

Thanks to our recent contact (Aug 2024) from a relation to Mary A. West, we’ve updated this post to include the following on the Hoyt-West Millinery Co. This was a successful and fairly large operation, located at 121 N. Santa Fe Ave. in Salina. It encompassed 2800 square feet and was run by partners, Miss Lillian M. Hoyt and Miss Mary A. West:

Sources:  Year: 1910; Census Place: Salina Ward 4, Saline, Kansas; Roll: T624_455; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 0138; FHL microfilm: 1374468. (Ancestry.com).

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/125233967/elizabeth-s-waite: accessed 17 March 2023), memorial page for Elizabeth S. Waite (19 Oct 1884–1 Mar 1983), Find a Grave Memorial ID 125233967, citing Gypsum Hill Cemetery, Salina, Saline County, Kansas, USA; Maintained by Mayflower Pilgrim 332 (contributor 47081711).

“Town Gossip.” The National Field, March 5, 1908. Thursday, p. 5. (Newspapers.com).

“Local Items.” The Salina Evening Journal.July 20, 1909. Tuesday, p. 2. (Newspapers.com).

“Hoyt-West Millinery Co.” Salina, Kansas – past and present, progress and prosperity – Souvenir [Kansas City, Mo.]. Freeman Publishing Company, [191?]. 48p. ill.; 28 cm.

Time and Tide Pass Quickly Away

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Divided Back, embossed, used postcard. Postmarked December 31, 1915 from Grand Central Station, New York, New York. Publisher:  S. A. S., copyright 1913. Series 254.

Price:  $7.00

“A Bright New Year”

“Time And Tide Pass

Quickly Away

But True Friendship

Is Here To Stay.”

Addressed to:   “Mr. & Mrs. Louis Maier, #320 E. 123 Str, NY. City”

From:  “Mr. & Mrs. Carl Klein”

A few possibilities show up for Louis Maier around this time, but oddly, nothing with the above address, not even under a different name. And Carl Klein is a common name in New York City, so, there’s no way to track him either.

A charming card – that of boy in snowshoes and winter outfit, carrying a beautifully-flowered lantern and bringing some mistletoe – one assumes maybe this was a Scandinavian tradition, but we couldn’t find confirmation of this idea. Maybe, just in general, the lantern’s bringing light for the New Year. The embossing is quite nice, too – the whole scene coming to us on some rough-edged “parchment” with a poinsettia “attached.”

A Happy Christmas To Miss Mattie Smith, Norton, KS

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Divided Back, embossed postcard. Unused with writing. Publisher unknown. Circa 1907 – 1909.

Price:  $3.00

Obviously, this one’s a little beat up, but I think I have other cards for Mattie, so I want to make sure they all get included.

The sender wrote:   “Dear Mattie: –   I rec’d  your Christmas remembrance which I was very glad to get. I hope you have had a Merry Christmas and I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year. Nellie K.”

Addressed to:   “Miss Mattie Smith, Norton, Kansas.”

This might be the Mattie Ristora Smith that had married Theodore Denney Romans in 1910. And, the sender possibility is Nellie King. They were both in Norton, Kansas in that time-period. We’ll have to look up the other possible cards we have for Mattie, and do some more research.

To Mr. and Mrs. Les Sparks, Lansing, KS

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Divided Back, embossed postcard. Made in U.S.A. Series 161. Postmarked from Tonganoxie, Kansas, December 23rd. Year missing. Circa 1925 – 1936.

Price:  $7.00

A cute design for this card, with its bowl of holly, quite adorable bow and dainty stars. (Seems unusual that the artist used a brown “pen” to draw with  – but that’s part of the charm of old postcards.) The prior post was from the same unknown publisher and dated 1927, so we started with an estimate of 1920s and went from there. The senders, Babe, Gladys and their boys, lived about 17 miles southwest of Lansing, Kansas.

The addressees are Kansas natives, James Leslie (or Lesley) Sparks, born about 1901, and wife, Mary, born about 1902. They were married August 8, 1923. Mary’s maiden name was Throckmartin, middle name Ver (apparently a family surname).

James appears as Leslie Sparks on the 1920 Federal Census, and as J. L. Sparks in city directories found online. Their home was in “Tonga City” and he worked at the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing when this card was sent, hence the added, “c/o Warden K. P.”

The 1925 State Census shows James L.’s occupation as written below. (Wow, tricky.) But this is standing for he “mans a service station”.

On the 1930 Federal Census, James L. is listed as unemployed. The record refers us to line number 3 on the Unemployment Schedule, however that information appears to have been lost. It’s possible that he may have been employed at the penitentiary and temporarily laid off, or he may not have not started working there until later in 1930 or as late as 1934, per that city directory.

The town, Tonganoxie was named after a Delaware Indian Chief.

Sources:  “Married Wednesday Evening.” The Columbus Weekly Advocate. August 11, 1923, Saturday, p. 2. (Newspapers.com).

Registration State: Kansas; Registration County: Jefferson County. Ancestry.com. U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918.

Year: 1920; Census Place: Union, Jefferson, Kansas; Roll: T625_535; Page: 9A; Enumeration District: 84. (Ancestry.com).

Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, Kansas; 1925 Kansas Territory Census; Roll: KS1925_78; Line: 29. (Ancestry.com).

Year: 1930; Census Place: Tonganoxie, Leavenworth, Kansas; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 0033; FHL microfilm: 2340443. (Ancestry.com).

“FAQs about the 1930 Census.” (archives.gov). Accessed December 25, 2022.

R. L. Polk & Co.’s Leavenworth (and county) City Directory, 1928. p. 439. Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995.

R. L. Polk & Co.’s Leavenworth (and county) City Directory, 1934. p. 388. Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995.

R. L. Polk & Co.’s Leavenworth (and county) City Directory, 1936. p. 407. Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995.

Linenberger, Shawn. June 9, 2016. “Chief Tonganoxie:  The man who shaped us.” tonganoxiemirror.com. (accessed December 25, 2022).

A Happy Yuletide to Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Bowyer

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Divided Back, embossed unused postcard. Made in the U.S.A. Series W-72.

Price:  $7.00

A Happy Yuletide

“Merry Christmas to you and yours

Kindest thoughts from me and mine

May nothing happen that obscures

Your fullest pleasure rich and fine!”

The senders wrote:   “Dec 17 1927. Dear Friends we are all well. A Merry Christmas and a happy new year. Mr. & Mrs. A. J. Marine”

Addressed to:   “Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Bowyer, Kingman, Kan.”

From the 1915 State Census, J. W., his wife Hattie, and their daughter, Anna are in White Township, Kingman, Kansas.

On the 1930 Federal Census, this is James W. Bowyer, born about 1860 and wife, Hattie J. Bowyer, born about 1868, living in Kingman City, Kingman, Kansas. Both born in Iowa. Per Find A Grave for the couple, James’ middle name is Warren and Hattie’s maiden name is Fowler.

And A. J. and Florence Marine are listed in the city directory for 1920, farming at their residence of 909 Santa Fe Trail, in Dodge City, Kansas. (Pretty surprising to be able to read the writing well enough and find the Marine family right off the bat in online records.)

The publisher is unknown (as is often the case) but it’s nice to have a dated card for future reference, if anyone’s looking for this postcard back. (I like the hand holding the torch.)

Sources:  Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, Kansas; Roll: ks1915_116; Line: 7. (Ancestry.com).

Year: 1930; Census Place: Kingman, Kingman, Kansas; Page: 23B; Enumeration District: 0016; FHL microfilm: 2340440. (Ancestry.com).

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/91867759/hattie-josephine-bowyer: accessed 24 December 2022), memorial page for Hattie Josephine Fowler Bowyer (27 Mar 1868–17 Oct 1954), Find a Grave Memorial ID 91867759, citing Walnut Hill Cemetery, Kingman, Kingman County, Kansas, USA; Maintained by Betty Rose M. (contributor 47456505).

Etrick’s Directory of Ford County,1920. Pg. 80. Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995.

A Joyful Christmas To Ida Thorstensen

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Divided Back, embossed postcard. Postmarked December 24, 1914 from Brooklyn, N.Y., Station G. Series 347.

Price:  $7.00

A small insert of Santa in his sleigh. He’s looking over his shoulder at us, surrounded by a spray of holly and berries.

“Best Wishes From The [?]”

Addressed to:  “Miss Ida Thorstensen, 8 Helen ave, So. Ozone Pk, L. I.”

Ida was found on the 1910 census, born in New York, about 1893. Daughter of Ferdinand and Julia Thorstensen, both born in Denmark. So, she’s about twenty-one when she receives this card. Charles, Frederick and Agnes are her older siblings.

Source:  Year: 1910; Census Place: Brooklyn Ward 25, Kings, New York; Roll: T624_974; Page: 1B; Enumeration District: 0714; FHL microfilm: 1374987