Wistful Wednesday: Postcards Grandpa Kept

Recently I went through some of  the old photos that belonged to my Grandfather and Grandmother Y.  Amongst the photos were some interesting  Real Photo Postcards.

Real Photo Postcards were all the rage in the early 1900’s.  You could have your picture taken and have it made into a Postcard, and then send it to your friends.  The cost for the postcards was usually about a penny and then it cost you a penny to mail.  So for two cents you could impress your friends.  You could also keep them.

This one is from 1910. An early hunting camp in Minnesota.  None of these people look like my Grandpa..and nothing is written on the back of the postcard. Nine men and fifteen deer, it must have been a good hunt.  They have a fire going and someone has slept in a Tepee.

A. A. Richardson had a Photo Illustrating Company in Bemidji, Minnesota in 1910. ( His business only survived a year.)  He notes on the postcard: This card is a genuine original photograph.

This postcard also from 1910 is what I call “No compromise” or “We are stuck together..forever.” There was no Photoshop back then..this is obviously an original genuine photograph! Who knows if these two bucks were entangled to their death or placed that way by a taxidermist.

I find these 100 year old postcards that my Grandfather kept very interesting.  I wonder what I have kept that I haven’t marked.  In 100 years will someone say  “What was Grandma thinking?” :)

Wistful Wednesday: Early 1900's

My paternal grandmother lived in Michigan until she was twenty-one years old.   Her family had moved to Minnesota and she followed them after a short time.  ( I will speculate that she was lonely and missed her parents and siblings.)  She had a very good job in Michigan, she was a housekeeper for a very wealthy couple.

Well do you suppose that a beautiful young lady of twenty one would have had just a few suitors? 

I found this Real Photo Postcard amongst the photographs that came from my Grandpa.. It is addressed to my Grandmother using her maiden name...it was probably sent by hand or with a package as there is no stamp.  I believe it to be from right around 1910.  My Grandmother married my Grandfather in 1911.

Hello Kido, Hows the world using you now these pretty summer days hope fine.  I am well and hope you the same. Don't get scared when you look at this sour face.

It is unsigned..so he doesn't even have a name.   I wonder if her heart had been broken in Michigan and that is why she came to Minnesota.   I guess we will never know.  Another thing we will never know is how she met my Grandfather..they were neighbors..they lived less than a mile from each other.  They did not go to the same church.  Since her dad was the local "Bone Doctor" perhaps that is how they met.  I guess I could speculate all day long.  Perhaps they met at a dance.  I was told once that the Finnish boys liked to go to dances so that they could dance with the German girls..the Finn girls wouldn't dance..and my Grandmother was a Finn girl:)