Lloyd Hublers 1911 Postcard: A Valentines Day Prank?

From: Unknown To: Lloyd Hubbler, 1911

Oh you kid: I’d enjoy another dance with you like the one I had at the Dickeyville dance. Would like to make a date with you, “You Honey Bunch”. Will try and be out for the 15th. Hope you will be there, dear. Will show you another good time. Oh honey I am so lonesome. From – you know who.

(flipped) Look under the stamp honey bunch. xxxxxxx

This is my picture honey.

(On front) I am ready xxx. From your sweet little wife. S.W.A.K

God am so home sick for a x x

Lloyds sweet wife ha ha

I can’t express to you how much I am obsessed with this card. Every inch of it is filled with writing. X’s dot the landscape of both the front and the back and someone added additional rouging and eyeliner to the image on the front. This postcard SCREAMS of some sort of joke, and I am absolutely here for it. So, let’s drop the card into history.

1911 sees the disaster of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York, the invention of Crisco, and the founding of the first movie studio. However, I have to wonder if the news of these events hit the small village of Potosi. Situated in the southwest corner of Wisconsin, modern day Potosi boasts a population of just over 600 people. Like many small towns, it was originally founded as a mining and farming village. Now, it hosts an annual catfish festival and fish fry the second weekend of August.

In 1911, Lloyd Hubler was a few months shy of his 20th birthday, and at least according to Family Search, still unmarried. He had one brother, who was 8 years his senior. Although the card puts Lloyd’s last name as “Hubbler”, I’m pretty sure it was “Hubler”. The Lloyd I found has a father named “William Scott”, but he’s listed as Scott W. in the census records. Seeing as the card was sent “c/o Scott Hubbler”, and the Hubler’s lived in Harrison County (where Potosi is located), I’m fairly certain I have the right man.

But birth days, death days, draft registrations, and the marriage index provide only the barest amount of context for a life. Who sent this card to Lloyd? Why? There are a few clues that we can use to point us in the right direction. Or at least to make some fun and semi-guesses.

First, the card was sent on February 16, two days after Valentines Day. My mind immediately goes to two scenarios. First, maybe there was a Valentines Dance for the surrounding area. Here, Lloyd met a girl and made the gravest mistake: he told his friends about her. Looking to pull a prank, they put together this card and sent it to him, care of his FATHER for added embarrassment.

Second, Lloyd’s older brother was 28 at the time. It’s possible he sent the card as a practical joke, but why would he misspell the name? While I think it’s possible he had something to do with the card, I doubt it was entirely done by the brother.

So, poor Lloyd had to deal with the embarrassment of being sent this provocative card. Because it was a postcard, everything could be seen by everyone. Not only could his father see and read it…but so could the postman, the postal workers…you get the idea. What did poor Lloyd do to deserve this humiliation? We will never know.

Lloyd did end up finding his “sweet” wife. In 1918, he married Leora Hinman. They went on to have three children. She outlived her husband by a decade, but I hope that their life together was S.W.A.K.