“It followed her to school one day, Which was against the rule;”

Cute postcard showing the above caption from the children’s nursery rhyme,  “Mary Had A Little Lamb.”  Funny on our end here to look at the writing on the sign above the schoolhouse door – to wonder if there was an actual school name there, or something discernible (as in I wonder what the artist was thinking…)  Anyway, this card appears to be addressed to:  “Mrs. N. Oldham, Santa Clara, Cal.”  The sender wrote,

“Dear Nellie, your sweet letter came. I am glad your [?] is well  Arline.”  The sender Arline, had an unusual way of writing the cursive small “s.” You can see that the “s” in sweet is the same as the “s” in the word that looks like “siz” and appears to be the same for the “s” in the word that appears to be “Mrs.” in the address line. Maybe it’s “siz” as is sister. There is also writing on the front in the border, but it’s very difficult to make out. The part that is legible is  “…I will write you a letter as soon as I…”  The unusual thing about this postcard is that it was stamped in three different cities. It must of went from Piedmont to Oakland to Santa Clara.

There is a Nellie Oldham in Santa Clara on the Federal Census in 1900, age 4, living with her father, William Riley Oldham and older brother William. The family is staying with Nellie’s grandparents, George and Isobel Oldham. In 1888, George and Isobel’s son, William Riley Oldham, married Nellie Grant Hite. William R. is listed as married on the 1900 census but his wife is not listed. This could have been incorrectly recorded, as the census taker mistakenly recorded the grandchildren as children. There are Ancestry family trees that show a death date for Nellie Grant (Hite) Oldham (Nellie’s mother) as 1897, so prior to the census, and in Santa Clara, but no sources are listed. William Riley Oldham is found on the 1920 census and listed there as widowed. If the Nellie on the 1900 census was the receiver of this card, she would have been about twelve in 1908, but it’s just speculation that this postcard has any connection to her. The difficulty is that the card seems to have been addressed to Mrs. N. Oldham, (Nellie’s mother.) ….The son William Oldham is William Riley Oldham, Jr. and his passport photo can be found online.

Divided back postcard. Three postmarks:  Sender’s location of Piedmont, California on January 20, 1908; stamped the same day in Oakland, California; and at the receiver’s location of Santa Clara, California on January 21, 1908. American Post Cards “Mary And Her Lamb” Series No. 67, No. 1761. Publisher:  The Ullman Manufacturing Co., New York.

Source:  Year: 1900; Census Place: Santa Clara, Santa Clara, California; Roll: 111; Page: 11A; Enumeration District: 0078; FHL microfilm: 1240111. (Ancestry.com)