Timely, given the upcoming holiday! I found an interesting set of postcards in my one grandmother’s box of correspondence which included this postcard. It doesn’t appear to be sent by or received by anyone related to us, and while I did at one point connect to a living relative of the recipient, we weren’t able to figure out how on earth grandma came into possession of these postcards. Patton, Pennsylvania isn’t far from where she lived, but the recipient was in Buffalo, New York, so it’s all a little confusing. Either way, it’s an interesting postcard, over 100 years old. The front has an image of a blue egg filled with pink flowers and two little yellow chicks, with gilded decoration on the egg and a message that says, “Easter Greetings.”
The back is postmarked Patton, PA, Feb 25, 1910 at 3am, and is sent to Master Lee Maher at 113 Aldrick Ave, Buffalo, NY. Immediately, I hit the census records for 1910 since looking up an address should be pretty easy. I did find a Lee Maher at 103 Aldrick Ave, living with his parents, Bernard and Hattie and younger brothers, James and William.
The message on the postcard says, “Hello Lee. How are you and James and Baby. When are you coming to Grandma’s, I would like to see you. Is the Easter Bunnie coming to your house. From Aunt Sara.”
The message lines up with the census record that shows a James and an 8 month old child (William) as of the census date in April, so that checks out pretty well! Aunt Sara is probably Bernard’s sister Sara who was still living at home in Patton, PA on the 1910 census. Lee appears to have passed away in 1966 in New Jersey (born 1903).
As far as the postcard itself, the only identifying marks on it are “Made in Germany” and “Serie 742” printed on the back, and in a quick search, I wasn’t able to turn up one exactly like it, though it’s definitely in the same style as postcards of the time. You can see from the back of the postcard, it’s also a pretty heavily embossed design.
