Pennsylvania Railroad Ticket 1962
Singer Advertisement
This was a unique one! Tucked in with the other Maher Postcards was this cutout of a girl in a ruffly dress. The back showed it was part of an advertisement for Singer Sewing Machines. I poked around the internet and found a copy of the full card posted with a copyright date of 1902, and the store printed on the back indicates an address in Buffalo. Sure enough, I found a newspaper ad for that exact store.
Not bad to put all the pieces together so easily! I still have no idea why grandma had these postcards or why this advertisement was cut out and saved along with them, but it’s definitely interesting enough to share.
Market Socks
Market Socks
Started: June 2022
Finished: 01 Sep 2022
Pattern: Plain Old Socks (my pattern)
Yarn: West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply in colorway “Blue Lagoon”
Needle: US 1.5 / 2.5 mm
Notes: I picked up this yarn at Seeded while visiting my husband in the UK. Any good knitter will go ahead and look for local yarn stores while on vacation because it’s always fun to find something new and now the memory of this trip comes to mind whenever I wear these socks which is pretty great! There’s something fun about buying a craft/art supply somewhere, creating something with it, and then having the finished object be something functional and also a memory of the vacation. Anyway, these are my “Market Socks” because I knit these mostly at farmers markets over the summer. Markets are longer in the summer and there’s usually a little bit of down time between customers or after getting set up, so I always had this project with me to keep me busy. Triple memory here maybe? Either way, love the color, the yarn is great, sturdy and yet soft stuff, and I hope I get years upon years of wear out of these!
Baccalaureate Services 1949
As a follow-up to a prior post with the graduation program, it appears grandma also saved the program for her Baccalaureate Service.
Again, this was a folded program scanned flat, so the front of the program is the right side of the first scan, and the back in the left side of the first scan. I didn’t have a Baccalaureate service when I graduated high school, but it seems to be a religious service for the graduates, celebrating their graduation from a secular, public school with a Christian service (I don’t get it either, it’s fine). The text is transcribed below for search indexing purposes, and the pages are clickable to see a larger version.
Baccalaureate Services for The Class of 1949 of Coalport-Irvona Joint High School, Coalport, PA.
Sunday, May 22, 1949, 4:00 P.M.
Program
Processional – Mrs. Jean Salem
Invocation – Rev. U. J. Terry
Hymn – Fairest Lord Jesus – Audience
Scripture Reading – Rev. R. U. Jones
Prayer – Rev. R. U. Jones
Offertory – “Path of Prayer” – Class
Address – Rev. R. U. Jones
Hymn – Be Still My Soul – Audience
Benediction – Rev. U. J. Terry
Recessional – Mrs. Jean Salem
Fairest Lord Jesus
Fairest Lord Je-sus, ruler of all
Nature,
O Thou of God and man the Son,
Thee will I cherihs, Thee will I
Honor,
Thou, my soul’s glory, joy and crown.
Fair is the sunshine, Fairer still
the moonlight,
And all the twinkling star-ry host;
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines
purer,
Than all the angels heav’n can boast.
Be Still, My Soul
Be still, my soul: the Lord is on
thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief
or pain;
Leave to they God to order and pro-
vide;
In every change He faithful will
remain
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy
heavenly Friend,
Thro’ thorny ways leads to a joy-
ful end. Amen
Spoonflower Cheater Quilt – Final
Following up all the way from 2015, here’s my final Spoonflower Cheater Quilt. For a look back (because I’m the slackiest slacker ever)..
Lesson 1 & 2 – Link
Lesson 3 – Link
Lesson 4 – Link
Whew, so the finished project! If I remember correctly, my sewing machine died at some point while I was doing the actual quilting around the squares, so that set me back till I could get a replacement, and then this poor thing moved houses, folded up neatly for *counts on fingers* SEVEN YEARS until I’m finally back posting about it and found a place for it over the back of a chair. Pardon the crummy photos – I laid it out on the floor and stood on a stool, so they’re not great, but they’re done at least!
It’s far FAR from perfect – the quilting is uneven and I have puckers here and there, it doesn’t lay perfectly flat.. but I do like it for a first go at quilting. I learned some things, and it’s neat to have the whole of 2014 on one finished piece. I could see possibly doing one of these for every 5 years or so? I’ve got an archive of digital photos for over 20 years now, so it’s possible to even go further and do four panels (one for each set of 5) and put them together into something larger.
The back is the design “Make it Snappy” by pennycandy and I even had little custom postcard style tags printed by spoonflower (you can kind of see it in the top left corner in the photo above – I digitally obscured my name). I know, the print was oriented horizontally instead of vertically so it doesn’t quite match the orientation of the front, but I loved this print SO much, it didn’t really matter that the orientation was different.
It’s a shame that Instagram has changed so much since this quilt was completed. I really enjoyed basic old static Instagram photos since you can’t put videos or reels on a quilt. Instagram used to help me curate moments from the day down to one or two photos instead of my massive photos stream on the phone that just goes on forever and ever. I’m not sure this is something I could really replicate again without doing tons of extra work to curate down photos and group them together by color theme. Overall, this was a neat project and a fantastic use of custom printed fabric from Spoonflower, and I’m glad I joined the challenge and finally posted my finished project!
Coalport Irvona High School Commencement 1949
Just so you know, when you graduate, someone saves all of your commencement programs for someone else to find over half a century later. This is the commencement program for one of my grandmothers’ graduations, so it’s neat to see her name printed in the program. The scan is the program laid flat, and then scanned the front/back side and then the interior. Click through to see any image full size – text inserted below mostly for search indexing purposes so that folks looking for their ancestors can find the data!
Commencement Exercises, Class of 1949, Coalport-Irvona High School, Monday, May 23, 1949, 8:00 P.M.
Class Roll
Betty Mae Beers
Robert Bell
Della Bloom
Blanche Bratton
Evelyn Brink *
Ida Dixon *
Joann Dixon
Barbara Hegarty *
LeRoy Kizina
Paulene McGarvey
Robert Morris
Connie Nelson *
Philip Plottel *
Madelyn Ponce
Kenneth Rydbom
Claire E. Spicher
Clarice Spicher
Ed. Traveny
* – Graduate With Honor
Class Officers
President – Le Roy Kizina
Vice President – Ida Dixon
Secretary – Claire E. Spicher
Treasurer – Connie Nelson
Class Motto – Honor Lies at Labor’s Gate
Class Color – Green and Gray
Class Advisor – Mr. Whittaker
Student Association Officers
President – Barbara Hegarty
Vice President – Ken Rydbom
Secretary – Germaine Flynn
Treasurer – Joann Dixon
Class Reporter – Ida Dixon
Council Representatives – Betty M. Beers, Bob Bell
Program
Processional – Mrs. Jean Salem
Invocation – Rev. H. R. Welliver
Piano Solo – Barbara Hegarty, Rachmaninof’s Prelude in C Minor
“Strive for a Star”
An original study by the honor students of the class of 1949
Star of Hope – Evelyn Brink
Star of Success – Phil Plottel
Star of Happiness – Connie Nelson
Vocal Duet – Clarice and Claire Spicher, Harbor Bell
Star of Peace – Ida Dixon
Star of Fulfillment – Barbara Hegarty
Vocal Solo – Ave Maria, Blanche Bratten
Presentation of the Class – George E. Fitch
Presentation of Diplomas – L. A. Lord, President, Board of Education
Musical Selection – Donna and Keith Bloom
Awards and Announcements – George E. Fitch
Choral Selection – Class of 1949
Benediction – Rev. H. R. Welliver
Recessional – Mrs. Jean Salem
Coalport-Irvona Joint High School Board of Education
L. A. Lord – President
Dr. C. L. Owens – Vice President
H. C. Newcomb – Secretary
D. S. Braucht, Fred A. Dubler, F. C. Andrew, John B. Holman, Dr. A. M. Gates, O. A. McGarvey, James Spade
Faculty
George E. Fitch – Supervising Principal
Hazel H. Fluke – Languages, Dramatics, Speech
Russell E. Whittaker – Commercial
Eugene M. Brady – Mathematics, Athletics
Mary E. Russell – Science, English, Dramatics
H. Richard Welliver – Social Studies, English, Library
Black Forest Socks
Black Forest Socks
Started: 22 March 2022
Finished: 29 March 2022
Pattern: Plain Old Socks (my pattern)
Yarn: Sheepy Time Knits Ewe Know Who in colorway, “Black Forest”
Needle: US 1.5 / 2.5 mm
Notes: Basic socks in a really neat green/black color that is absolutely named perfectly. Knit up in only a week!
Many Happy Returns of the Day – 1911
This is another in the series of “Maher Postcards” that are explained in this post. The front of this card shows purple irises surrounding a birthday message, transcribed below.
Many Happy Returns of the Day
May your days from now be brighter
May your load grow ever lighter
May this birthday be the first of days
When ill luck flies away, and good luck stays.
The card is addressed to Mrs. Bernard Maher, the former Miss Hattie Braniff, born 28 May 1886 in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania. The sender is Catherine Maher, her mother-in-law, who wrote out the address putting little hearts at the front of each letter in her name and in “Buffalo” and “NY” which is just too charming. The postmark date is 26 May 1911, so it likely arrived on Hattie’s 25th birthday which is fantastic timing and close to this post date, albeit over a hundred years earlier. The one cent Benjamin Franklin stamp is still affixed. The message reads, “Hello Hattie, how are and all the rest. We are all well here at present, tell Bernard Aunt Annie Garrity is getting married to a Bernard Duigon of Hastings. Wishing you a happy birthday.”
The Annie Garrity mentioned in the message is Annie McCann (1865-1936) who married Catherine’s brother, William. William passed away in 1904, so the news being passed on is that Annie, Catherine’s sister-in-law, is marrying a second time. It’s great that she was able to slip in a little bit of family news along with the birthday greetings as it helps to cement exactly who we’re talking about here!