Happy Easter: We Used to Send Postcards

We used to send postcards...a lot, and it was a fun way to let people know we were thinking about them when we traveled. But I do not recall ever sending one at Easter time. Below is an Easter postcard sent from Norway, addressed to my grandparents in America in the early 1900s. The scribbling on front was probably my mother's doing or that of one of her five siblings.

I've never saved postcards for long. Have you? Perhaps I should have. I did find an old collection of greeting cards once in a drawer. Some were for Easter, not the Easter bunny kind for kids, but those celebrating the resurrection of Christ. For some reason they were never sent. To be frank, the holiday never really caught on with Hallmark or other card makers as it had with the other holidays. Not that it never caught on with me. I still attend sunrise services. But I sometimes blame the loss of Easter on the school system when spring break stopped falling on this holiday. Just a theory. Perhaps, it was one too many Christian celebrations to keep in the mix, I'm not sure, but let's face it, both Christmas and Easter can easily be celebrated without any reference to Christ.   

I come from a family of Lutherans, both German Lutherans and Norwegian Lutherans. My closest German ancestors pretty much lost their faith, despite one Rader ancestor who had ridden horseback all over Missouri evangelizing his neighbors and extended family in the late 1800s. The Rader family made history in that state and left quite a legacy. One town bears the family's name to this day. 

My Norwegian side held firm to the faith, even those who boldly tried less traditional worship in other churches, like Baptist and Pentecostal types. My grandfather was a diehard Lutheran though, having been the only Lutheran Gravseth to travel to America. Religion divided my grandmother and him quite a bit over the years, as she did leave the Lutheran church. From the old country (i.e. Norway) their families sent religious postcards during the holidays, like the one below, and I have to think it may have been the one time their faiths were united.

 

Sharon M. Himsl

Published: Evernight Teen 

The Shells of Mersing