Another item from grandma’s scrapbook. John (grandpa) was sending her funny things all the time apparently, since there are a TON of postcards, newspaper clippings, and oddball little pieces like this tucked into that scrapbook. I’m really grateful she saved all this because it gives us a little glimpse into the life they led while separated by World War II. John entered the Army Air Force while they were dating, and they married in 1943 while he was home briefly. He served almost two more years after they married, so the majority of their correspondence via postcards is tucked into this scrapbook. Grandpa died in 1984, so I have one or two vivid remnants of memories of him (I was very young when he passed away) and I don’t recall grandma ever really talking about him much. I suppose we just didn’t talk about the past, so I didn’t know anything about our family history before I started all this and grandma wasn’t around to ask anymore either.
On to the card! On the back, John (grandpa) wrote,
One Fellow had these cards printed just for fun. He gave me one of them and I am sending it to you. How do you like it?
I haven’t looked into who “Chuck” Frailey might have been since it’s probably a little too common of a name to pin down to one person, especially without any details about birth, death, where he lived, or his real name since Chuck is in quotes. Obviously, the card is from the 1940s (probably 1941-ish based on the other items on the page), and the humor is definitely of the time period though more that a little bit cringeworthy now. I did a little searching and apparently these type of cards arose out of the Victorian era as Acquaintance cards or Escort cards as a way of introducing oneself without arousing the suspicion of a woman’s chaperone. They’d largely fallen out of favor by the time this one was printed, but I did happen to find a nearly identical one on flickr with the same lines about “Special attention to other fellow’s girls” and “Sole owner of lovers lane.”
If you want to see more of these, there’s a great gallery on Flickr.