Category Archives: The Lena Davis Postcard Collection

To Lena From Sophia B. Freeman

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Divided back, embossed, unused postcard. “Christmas” Series – Postcard No. 207. Printed in Germany. Circa early to mid-1910s.

Price:  $5.00

“To = Lena Davis.   From = Sophia B. Freeman. Handsworth, Sask.”

Re-visiting our friend, Lena…..it’s been a while, but here’s one from our Lena Davis Collection. The publisher name needs research, will get to that shortly, but the card showing Merry Christmas and poinsettias, extends this verse to us:

“Thine be all the joy and treasure,

Peace, enjoyment, love and pleasure.”

The sender wrote:

“Dear Friend, Will answer your kind letter after Xmas. Charles and the little boys are with me for Xmas so I am busily engaged in cooking the usual amount of cake & plum puddings. I wish you a very happy Xmas with lots of fun. Truly[?] yours, Mrs. J. W. Freeman.”

It looks like Sophia is found on the 1916 Canadian Census taken in Stoughton Village, Saskatchewan, which is about 25 miles southwest of Handsworth, the address on the card. Both she and her husband, John William Freeman, were born in England. Sophia was born about 1889. They have two daughters, Mary Sophia, age 2, and Esther Francis, 2 months old. Also in the household is Charles Henry Braithwaite, sister to Sophia, so Sophia’s maiden name is Braithwaite. And this Charles then, must be the one mentioned on the card.

Source:  Year: 1916; Census Place: Saskatchewan, Assiniboia, 17; Roll: T-21935; Page: 2; Family No: 15. (Ancestry.com).

Forget-me-nots and Seagulls

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Divided back, embossed postcard. Postmarked May 11, 1913 from Elwood, Nebraska. Series or number G10.

Price:  $5.00

“Only a message sweet and true

Saying I think today of you.”

Addressed to:   “Miss Lena Davis, Almena Kans.”

“May 10       Dear Cousin, We are all well having fine weather. I have 109 little chicks my housecleaning done and garden planted. The wheat look fine. Fred is listing corn he has been sick but better now. The boys grow fast and play out doors all the time. From Your Cousin Alice.”

Have been away from posts (alas) for some time. This seems to be a common refrain lately (sigh). Anyway! Here’s one from our Lena Davis Collection (hey, Lena 🙂 ) of a beautiful sunset on a lake (lake as in Great Lakes comes to mind, being a Michigander) with sailboat, seagulls and is partially framed by forget-me-nots. Flipping to the back to read the message from Lena’s cousin Alice, we jump from lakeside to a rural farm setting of chicks, wheat and corn……What woman cannot relate to this sense of accomplishment,  “I have my 109 little chicks, housekeeping done and garden planted.”  Time to kick back on the front porch with an ice-cold lemonade (while of course, keeping an eye on the boys, ever-multi-tasking 😉  ).

And, yes, Fred is really “listing” corn. He would have used a piece of farm equipment similar to the one pictured below, planting the kernels in the furrows (the ditches) so the corn could root deeper in the soil and the roots could be covered later, thus protecting them in times of drought.

Source:  Widtsoe, John Andreas. Dry Farming:  A System of Agriculture for Counties Under Low Rain Fall. New York:  The McMillan Company, 1911. (archive.org).

To Lena From Gladys

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Divided back, embossed postcard. Postmarked December 29, 1913, Almena, Kansas.

Price:  $3.00

A Happy New Year

A pink rose and some forget-me-nots are framed in blue. (The embossing from the reverse is maybe even nicer – very elegant in white.) And this card was sent to our old friend Lena Davis who we haven’t visited in a while – her cousin Gladys writes:

“Almena Kans. Dec. 30 1913. Dear Cousin, Rec’d your card glad to hear. How is Grandma & all the rest. John’s mother and Sophie are sick took down Wed. We went Sat. and just got home they are better now. Don’t know when we will be up but don’t wait on us. How is Laura, Write soon, Glad.”

Sweetwater Dam, Near San Diego, California

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Undivided back, unused postcard. Circa 1906. Publisher:  E. P. Charlton & Co., San Diego, California. Number or series:  788.

Price:  $6.00

The Sweetwater Dam is located about twelve miles east of San Diego, and was first constructed in 1888, but raised and retrofitted several times over the next few decades. The construction process back in 1888 for the dam involved horses and mules carrying stone from the quarry to the site in carts.

This card is one from our Lena Davis Collection. Click below to see the beautiful flourish-y details of this portion of the reverse from the publisher:  a great design (as is the easier-to-see stamp box).

Heartfelt wishes and wistful thoughts, from the sender:

“Dear Friend Lena. Many thanks for the Kind greetings and in stead of an Easter card will enclose photos hoping you will read in it heartiest wishes for a true Easter as its name implies. So sorry Mrs. Hall is so poorly. Give her my best wishes. And dear girl how I wish for the sake of my boys and girls, I were better looking. When looking at it think how much I love you and desire for you the best in life and may our heavenly Father bless you abundantly. Love to all from your old friend Dee French. Mar. 1914.”

Source:  Sweetwater Dam. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetwater_Dam (accessed June 12, 2017).

Happy Be Thy Birthday

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Happy Be Thy Birthday pc1Happy Be Thy Birthday pc2

“The wish of thy friend is

Happy be thy Birthday”

 

Per musings from the prior post, here’s another card with the often seen stone bridge. A simple design in a fancy frame:  a winter scene with red bridge over a stream and a red house that’s supposed to be further in the background. One of the Lena Davis collection, and the sender wrote:

“Oct. 4, 1912. Dear Cousin. Many happy birthday greetings from Mr. and Mrs. C. Haney[?]”

Addressed to:   “Miss Lena Davis. Almena, Kans. R. F. D. #3”

And what almost went unnoticed was the publisher info which barely appears from under the postage stamp, indicating Copyright E. Nash.

Last but not least, this same design with a different message shows up on another card in the same collection.

Divided back, embossed, used postcard. Postmarked October 5, 1912 from Elwood, Nebraska. Publisher:  E. Nash. Landscape Series, No. 16B.

Price:  $3.00

To Lena From Laura

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“Dear Sister. Mar 20 – I tried to talk to Ellen yesterday a.m.[?] at Ted’s and she said Alice was there. Well I’ll try to get home Sat. morning. (Will if the roads are so that I can get to Arapahoe – Roads are awful. Mail has only come two or three times in ten days. don’t know whether it will come to-day or not. We are going to John’s this morning. All are well. So long – Laura”

Addressed to:   “Lena Davis, Almena Kans. Route 3 Box 86.”

Another winter scene and with the heading  “Many Happy Returns.”  And though many old postcards like this one might be judged as not very high quality, still the colors and the composition are nice, especially if you enlarge it to take a closer look.

Divided back, embossed, used postcard. Postmarked March 21, 1912, location unknown.

Price:  $3.00

May You Always Know

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“May you always know the

enjoyment of happiness

that comes from true friends.”

Another from The Lena Davis Collection. By publisher E. Nash and showing a framed winter scene of a river with a red bridge and red house further in the background. The sender wrote:

“Long Island. Dec. 11. Dear Cousin, We got home o.k. about six. We picked up Newt Miller in Almena and took him to the Island he said he had been to the burg. We picked up Babe at Hays and drove her the rest of the way home. We had lots of fun.”

Sent to:   “Miss Lena Davis, Almena, Kan.”

Almena is about ten miles southwest of Long Island, and there’s a Hays, Kansas about 100 miles south of Long Island. Wonder how long it would have taken them in 1913. It sounds like it was just a day trip, but on the other hand perhaps Hays is a person. It’s interesting that Long Island is referred to as “the Island.”

See another in the Lena Davis Collection with the same design but different message.

Divided back, embossed, used postcard. Postmarked December 11, 1913 from Long Island, Kansas. Publisher:  E. Nash. Number or Series:  G-16.

Price:  $3.00

A Flowery Greeting From Mrs. Fred Grannis

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This is a Lena Davis one, and we’re not yet trying to figure out who is who exactly, as there are more to sort through and post, and that’ll come later. But it’s a perfect postcard to put up on the heels of the prior, since there’s a gingham reference. It’s a great one typical to the Midwest farm country in 1912, with reports of the weather, dressmaking and farming. It was postmarked in Elwood, Nebraska. Elwood is a village in Gosper County, whose population in 2010 was about 707.

“Dear Cousin, – We have had some very cold weather. It is raining now but not very hard. I have been busy. I am making a red calico dress with black color [collar?] over the patter[n] I made the ginghum one when you were here. Fred is drilling in wheat has 45A in now. From Alice.”

Addressed to:   “Miss Lena Davis, Almena, Kans.”

Divided back, embossed, used postcard. Postmarked September 28, 1912 from Elwood, Nebraska. Publisher unknown.

Price:  $4.00

Source:  Elwood, Nebraska. n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwood,_Nebraska. (accessed May 17, 2015).

Seal And Bear, Garden Of The Gods, Colorado

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Divided back, used postcard. Postmarked June 26, 1915 from Long Island, Kansas. Publisher:  F. H. Langdon & Co., Denver, Colorado. Series or number 210.

Price:  $3.00

“Long Island, June 21.  Dear Cousin, how are you. am O.K. when the mud is dry. have you been boat riding. George and sis was over yesterday and said there was lots of folks boat riding along the river. they said there was four days that the folks couldnt cross. havent got over my corn yet the way it has been it will be a month I think. Come down and see the weeds they are doing well. As ever, J.K.”

Addressed to:   “Miss Lena Davis, Calvert, Kan.”

Long Island in this case is Kansas…And there’s lots going on in this nearly 100 year old message, isn’t there? It makes you think:  mud was a concern for walking or navigating through with any type of vehicle; if the river was high and there was no bridge, and the weather was inclement, then it would be difficult or maybe inadvisable to cross; planting the vegetable garden would be always a major concern every year, what was going on with the corn? But at least the weeds were doing well!

Update:  See the comment from a Garden of the Gods tour guide at the bottom of this post. This prompted me to research, and include below, the following article that appeared in the Great Falls Tribune (Great Falls, MT) April 22, 1942:

Source:  “Aged Garden of Gods Landmark Crumbles.” Great Falls Tribune. (Great Falls, MT) April 22, 1942. (Newspapers.com).

Major Domo In Glen Eyrie, Colorado

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Major Domo In Glen Eyrie Colorado pc1Major Domo In Glen Eyrie Colorado pc2

This postcard shows another example of an expression back in the day, for something or someone, that looks “natural.” See the prior post. The unknown sender wrote:

“Passed here March 24, 1910. Saw this it looks very natural.”   Addressed simply to “Lena.”

A majordomo is someone that runs a large household as in a butler or steward or someone that runs an enterprise.

Divided back, unused with writing. Publisher:  Thayer Publishing Co., Denver. Number or series 372. Dated March 24, 1910.

Price:  $1.00

Source:  Majordomo. Merriam-Webster. Web [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/majordomo]