I like to share my collection of vintage postcards here. I have not done one of these posts in awhile and I figured it was time again (other past card posts here and here).
It seems throughout time there have been unanswered lovers and letters.
When I saw this post card, I knew I wanted to own it. It combined both of the above. This is what it says:
“hellow Jettie
Say I would like to no the reason I havent never got my ancer from my letter
Looks like you wood ancer
do so at once
ha ha
So good By
a Friend R”
I cringe at the grammatical errors, however, the postcard was sent in 1912 from a rural Kentucky town with a population of less than a 1,000. There were probably not a great many schools to choose from and a lot of hard work to be had.
The post card makes me sad. Sometimes it makes me wonder. Did the girl respond to the boy? Did they get married? Could I send this postcard to their children? What happened to the two individuals so long ago?
I wondered so much about this postcard that I did some research into the name that the card was addressed to. It seemed curious to me that if the girl in question did not want to answer the boy, then why would she keep the post card all of those years? Why not throw the card away? If she had thrown the card away, then I never would have purchased it. And I would not have looked up the girl to find her fate.
The woman who received this postcard was eighteen when it arrived in her mailbox. Her name was Jettie. I find that I like that name.
This is what I learned about Jettie:
She never married.
She lived near a railroad.
Her family were farmers.
Her occupation is unlisted, so I assume she did not have one.
She passed away at the age of 59 in her home she shared with her sister.
She was buried in the family cemetery.
A Kentucky census listed her age as 19 in the year of 1910, but she was born in 1894, so the census was incorrect.
She was an Aquarius.
I wonder if the boy waiting for his ancer ever received one. If he did, it is obvious, it was not the one that he had been hoping for.
Did he ever marry? Did he attend Jettie’s funeral? What made Jettie keep the postcard all of those years (neither her, nor her three siblings, ever married. There has to be a story there. And I assume the possessions, including this post card, were sold or donated after the last sibling’s death by a distant relative or by the state)?
When I began researching this story, I had hoped for a better ending. One in which the boy won the girl over with a relentless stream of letters.
But maybe Jettie liked being independent. Or maybe she tossed and turned dreaming about the boy in another town as the train rumbled on the track and shook her bedpost so that it tapped against the wall in the exact rhythm of her heart. Or maybe she lost no sleep at all.
I, myself, toss and turn. And I wonder.
