September 6, 1946
Sorry Dear(?)
Wish you and Luce(?) were here at this hotel – room 1205 – mail us(?) that letter soon. And my hand is some better. Write me here whenever you can.
Love,
Junie(?)
Category: Climate
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? It’s feasible the name is actually misspelled in the census records. But, while I think it’s possible Lloyd’s brother 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, everyone could see everything. Not only could his father see the card 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.
To: Miss Annie Earl. From: AS(?) 1915
I wish I could send you more than a (unreadable)
In 1915, Woodrow Wilson was president, the United States began it’s occupation of Haiti, the Lusitania was sunk by a German U-Boat, and the United States recognized the new Mexican Government as a de-facto government.
This is one of the few cards I have that’s from a true resort town, and I love the vibes of it all. By 1915, Atlantic City was already a destination city, bringing in over 500,000 people by rail every year. At this time, the boardwalk was over 7 miles long, and an array of large hotels sprawled along the ocean, some capable of holding up to 2,000 guests. I have to assume that the sender of this card was in Atlantic City on vacation, though, of course, they could have been a seasonal worker.
As beautiful as the card is, it’s a tad frustrating because there’s simply not much information. The last word is illegible (for me), and even the sender’s signature is nothing more than scrawled initials. I do have the name “Annie Earl”, but even that led to a dead end. There were many, many, Ann’s, Anna’s, and Annie’s that fit the time frame — and while I have a suspicion of which one or two might be correct, I don’t feel confident enough to write about them. So, I’ll leave you with some theories.
My first guess is that this is one of two types of card. Either, from one sibling to another, or from one friend to another (with a possible romantic entanglement since that’s how I role). My gut feeling tells me this is probably an older sibling writing to a younger one. Maybe they were working in Atlantic City but couldn’t send money, or maybe they simply didn’t have enough time to send a full letter.
My less prominent theory — but perhaps more fun one — is that this is a beau writing to his girl. Maybe he was down on his luck and had gone to Atlantic City to earn some dough and that didn’t go through. Maybe he wanted to get enough money to marry. I genuinely don’t think this is the case, but since I’m left with little information, it’s fun to think about the possibilities.
Either way, it’s a beautiful card with elegant and sweeping handwriting. It feels like there’s a cool breeze drifting in from the ocean, and I envision the sender quickly writing out the letter on the boardwalk, squinting their eyes against the sun. What a lovely memorial to a July day.
“Scene at the Inlet”
To: Mr. Warren Spitler From: Effye 1920
Am having the time of my life. Can you find me on the beach? Come down, the water is fine. All well and able to sit up an take notice.
Effye.
The 1920 census was the first census to record a population of over 100 million in the United States. 192o was the ACLU was founded, and Congress decided not to join the League of Nations. By August 26, the 19th Amendment of the Constitution was passed, granting women the right to vote. Racial tensions, however, ran high in the nation. Lynchings occurred in throughout the year in both the North and the South. The Roaring Twenties had truly begun.
If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you may recognize this card. This is one of the first cards I posted, and I didn’t research it. Since I had a bit of a late day at work, I decided to revisit the card and do a little bit of research. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find anything — as you know that’s how the jelly rolls sometimes, but I like the art on this card. I think it’s beautiful and I love the beach scene. So, I figured I’d give it a go.
Imagine my surprise when I easily found a Warren Spitler in the family search records. Even stranger, Warren was born on September 18, 1884. The post date of this blog will be the anniversary of his 140th birthday! I’m a bit of a superstitious gal, and I can’t help but think Warren may have had something to do with the timing. Let’s get into it.
As I said, Warren was born on September 18, 1884 in Augusta, Virginia. There’s no (accessible) information on him until the 1930 census, which places him in Covington. He was 45, and living with his brother and his brother’s family. He’d remain there in the 1940 census as well. Both the census records and Find a Grave indicate that he was a salesman in a department store, though was type I don’t know.
It seems that Warren never married, so I wondered who Effye may have been and what relationship the two of them had. I thought perhaps a sister, though there was none that stood out as having the nickname Effye. There is an Abbie, so maybe that’s it? The handwriting also seems a bit childish to me, so I thought niece perhaps? But, searching through the family tree I can’t find many of his siblings who married. If you note the grave, Warren is buried next to his brother Clarence, also unmarried. I didn’t go deep into the family tree, but there weren’t many nieces or nephews to be found.
So, who is Effye? Is it a nickname for a sister or a niece? Is it a friend of Warren’s, or perhaps even a cousin? There’s a few cousins that could fit the bill, but again I came up short. Still, I hope that Warren found time to “sit up and take notice” on the beautiful beach with the people he loved.
Happy birthday Mr. Warren Spitler!
Front of Postcard, 1920
To: Mrs. Chas C. Green. From: Ida Lyon
Dear Bea(?) (or Beau?)
Just a card and few. lines — hope yous are well and enjoy yourselves. I’ll be glad(?) when Spring is here so I can be outside. Love snow now. Must close for now. Write when you can.
Love as always,
Your Friend,
Ida Lyon(?)
In 1958, Eisenhower was President, Bobby Fisher won the US Chess Championship, the plastic hula hoop is first marketed, and the space race is in full swing. The country may have been leaning into scientific progress, but it would be another two years before Ruby Bridges stepped into the halls of a white school, and another seven before the Civil Rights Act was passed that outlawed discriminatory voting practices.
It took me a while to research this card, in part because the names aren’t super clear. Again, we have a card that’s being mailed to a woman, but her name is obscured by her husband. I started there, with “Chas Green”. Quickly, I found that Chas is often short for Charles (yay internet!), so I then started to search Charles, Charles C, etc etc, all to no avail. I thought I might get a hit off the address, but no luck.
And what about Ida? Well, I can’t be sure that her last name IS Lyon. Nonetheless, I searched the name on Family Search, and started weeding through the Ida’s. Sometimes searching the archives is like trying to find breadcrumbs lost in a dirt path. They are there, and you can find them, but it’s very difficult.
Since I’m fairly certain this card starts out with a pet name (Bea or Beau) I considered that it was a possibility Ida was writing to her sister. I went to every Ida that would fit the timeframe, and followed the family trees to check sisters and their husbands. On very rare occasions, this tactic has worked and I’ve been able to find the subjects of my postcard.
This time, it did not work. I did find an Ida with a slew of sisters, one of whom was a Betty. Betty was married four times, and as I kept scrolling I hoped that one of them had the last name “green.” She did not, so I kept searching to no avail.
Despite the fact that I couldn’t find Ida or Mrs. Chas Green, the postcard itself is lovely. I get the sense that Ida is a bit cooped up, though she seems to love the snow (I think), she’s already longing for the warm days of summer and looking for connection in the dark and chilly season. It’s also very typical of a 1950’s postcard. It has the divided back, a two cent stamp, and the image on the front has a white border around it that was normal for the era.
Whomever they were, I hope they connected via a longer letter, and managed to see each other in the warmth of Summer.
Mississippi River Lock and Dam, Fountain City, Wis
Silhouetted trees
Black against a neon sky
Sway in a cool breeze
Summer is waning
Which heightens the nostalgia
Of teen years long passed.
Record heat persists
Living beside intense fires
And massive flooding
The stripping of rights
Polarizing of nations
Anger…everywhere
But this damn sunrise
Is so fucking beautiful
That we snap photos
Rather than bask in the bright
And vivid moment
A breeze has begun.
Listless still, but cold and crisp
It harbors the fall.
and the end of an old cycle
But, underneath the wind
A budding laugh grows
And she awakens
Like a new spring
Categories
Climate Blind
Storms in the west
Floods in the south
We’re watching it happen
But shutting our mouth
Record heat in the east
And in the north too
Shaking our heads
What’s there to do?
Nothing can change until we make it so
Revolution is coming
And lots of sorrow
To grow is to change
That’s the advice most given
Which of course implies
That change is progress
But often, that’s not the case
Change is simply change
It’s not attached to morals
And while it can be progressive
It’s doesn’t always mark progress
In fact sometimes
It marks steps backwards
Instead of forward
But again, not always
Because change is simply that:
change
It’s attached to nothing
But we change
So we can breathe.
Hipstory 