Thursday, December 20, 2012

Postcards from Christmas Past





"Waiting for Santa Claus"                                         "Happy Christmas"
My mother recently relocated and I helped with some of her packing. She had drawers and cupboards full of odds and ends, mostly junk she claimed, that I managed to organize into zip-lock bags and boxes. But some of our finds were family heirlooms: old black and white pictures of family members long since gone, a small fishing tool that my Norwegian grandfather had patented and used while fishing in Alaska, an antique  Stereoscope Viewer complete with stereoscopic cards for 3-D viewing, and a beautiful collection of postcards. Postcards, remember those? Many in our collection were mailed from Norway in the 1910s. The images are so different from any postcards I remember sending or receiving. What I find most interesting in both the postcards and 3-D cards are the stories that some obviously tell. They inspire the imagination, and one only needs to remember that television had not yet been invented to understand why. Many of the 3-D cards are hilarious, if not a little risque' for the time. I plan to share cards from both collections over the coming months. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. I would love to hear your impressions . . .

                               (To Marie from Mrs. Kershaw)                                             (To Carl from Amanda?) 
                     (1918; to Carl, Cecil, North Dakota)                                      (1922; from Mervin Clyde)                                                                

                          
                    


Copyright 2012 © Sharon Himsl
[Postcards from Gravseth family archive]

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You could call me an eternal optimist, but I'm really just a dreamer. l believe in dream fulfillment, because 'sometimes' dreams come true. This is a blog about my journey as a writer and things that inspire and motivate me.