Author: <span>Sheetar</span>

Old Postcard – .. and send me home

Grandpa sent dozens of postcards to grandma while he was away with the Army Air Force, and it was neat to watch them go from being addressed to Miss and then Mrs after they got married.  This one was sent July 22, 1942 from Foster Field, Texas and there’s no stamp because postage was (and still is, in some places) free for the military.  Grandpa just wrote “Free” over the stamp box and it got straight to grandma, no problem.  I’m only posting the front of the card, not the back with the message since that feels a little too personal, but the back indicates the postcard was published by “Southern Card Co., Sa. Antonio, Texas.”  It’s a pretty funny postcard and seems to have a number of variations I saw on a quick google search.  The postcard has an image of a donkey and says, “I’m Out On a H.. of a time! When I can’t stand, tie this to my buttonhole, steal my pocketbook, wind my watch, and sponge my clothes, tie this tag to my [ass] and send me home.” There’s a space for name/address, then at the bottom, “Keep this out of the newspapers, and tell my wife it was an old stomach trouble.”

Postcard with a donkey that says, "I'm Out On a H.. of a time!  When I can't stand, tie this to my buttonhole, steal my pocketbook, wind my watch, and sponge my clothes, tie this tag to my (image of donkey) and send me home."  There's a space for name/address, then at the bottom, "Keep this out of the newspapers, and tell my wife it was an old stomach trouble."

Christmas Menu 1943

Another find from grandma’s scrapbook was a series of holiday mess menus grandpa had sent home from various posts.  This one in particular was from 25 December 1943 at Foster Field, Texas and featured a message from John J. Glennon, the post chaplain.  The menu also mentions the mess officer, Lt. Ned N Sweitzer and Mess Sergeant M-Sgt. H. E. Anderson, and there’s what might be a cover design credit to Pvt. Stanley S. Karafin.  It seems like a pretty standard menu with a turkey dinner, vegetables, and desserts, but notably missing from this one, at least when compared with others, is a mention of cigarettes and cigars below the desserts!  Short and sweet today – I have a few more of these to post, but I’ll line those up for future posts.  Click any image to see the full size.

Bee Mittens

Bee Mittens
Started: 28 Jan 2022
Finished: 5 Feb 2022
Pattern: Hey Bee-Otch Mittens by Drunk Girl Designs
Yarn: Valley Yarn Huntington in Mustard (0024) and Chocolate (B118) – 21 grams remaining of the yellow and 20 grams of the brown.
Needle: US 0 / 2 mm
Notes: Okay, so they’re not quite exactly to pattern, but as a beekeeper, I kind of wanted just plain bee mittens even though I deeply appreciate the bee pun.  So, I repeated the “Bee” part from the left mitten to the right once I got to that point in the chart, otherwise I left everything the same in the pattern.  I probably would knit the thumb another 5-6 rows longer (it was still a little short even after having added an additional 4 rows), and would swap out the thumb increases to run along the border to the mitten body instead of along the center outside of the thumb.  The construction just feels wonky and fits weird?  I’ve never done thumb increases this way and, it works, but it’s definitely not my preferred method.  Also, the patterning on the thumb made the float situation a hot mess on the inside.  If I knit these again, I’d probably just invert the design on the palm for the thumb to keep things tidier inside the thumb.  There were lots of long floats in this pattern, so it involved a good deal of managing those floats while knitting and then futzing with the finished piece to pull the too-long ones into submission, but it’s 100% worth it for the final result.  This designer does SUCH a gorgeous job on the colorwork designs and this is the second pattern of hers that I’ve knit, and I’m super happy with the finished mittens!

Mothers’ Day Postcard

Every once in a while, I remember I have something in the genealogical stash that lines up with the holiday at hand!  This postcard was found in a box of grandma’s things in a set of postcards that didn’t belong to her or any family member.  I honestly have no idea how she came across them!  I had contacted someone via Ancestry.com who was related to the person most of these were sent to, and neither of us could make a link.  Anyway, today’s postcard was in that set and I only found it online one other place, so I thought I’d share it today.  The front is printed in tones of blue with “Mothers’ Day” at the top, a photo of a woman, and carnations framing a poem that is as follows:

To Honor Our Mothers
Just one such kindly face,
A heart so filled with grace;
Gift of the One above,
A mother, and her love.

The back says it’s No. 212, price $1 per 100 by Meigs pub. co., Indianapolis, Ind.  Made in the U.S.A.  Someone wrote in pen what appears to say, “Compliments of the Epworth League 1934” – the Epworth League being a Methodist association for young adults that existed under that name from 1889-1939.  Grandma was Methodist, so it’s possible this was actually hers or her mother’s, or that the link between her family and the family mentioned in the postcards lies in a connection made through the church.  As far as who that woman on the postcard is, it doesn’t appear to be of Anna Jarvis, the founder of Mothers’ Day, and I couldn’t find anything more about who she might be even after doing a Google Image search and trying to find the author of the poem.  If you happen to know, definitely drop me a comment!!