Golden Park, Golden, Illinois - 1907
Recently, I was fortunate to obtain a bag of old pictures and letters, from an Aunt of mine to sort through. Unfortunately most of the photo's are not identified; she has had them for a long time and does not recall who gave them to her. I have been able to identify a few by comparing them to other similar photo's. I'm starting to believe that these photo's and letters once belonged to a 3rd cousin of ours, John Harms. My reasoning is that most of the letters are from John's mothers family, and many of them appear to be addressed to his father Herman Harms. John saved many letters written by the Ufkes family from the late 1800's and most are written in German. I'm anxiously awaiting the translations, as one of them was signed by my great great grandmother, Annebken (Ufkes) Habben. Cannot wait to hear the latest gossip from Weisens, Germany in 1894.
Recently, I was fortunate to obtain a bag of old pictures and letters, from an Aunt of mine to sort through. Unfortunately most of the photo's are not identified; she has had them for a long time and does not recall who gave them to her. I have been able to identify a few by comparing them to other similar photo's. I'm starting to believe that these photo's and letters once belonged to a 3rd cousin of ours, John Harms. My reasoning is that most of the letters are from John's mothers family, and many of them appear to be addressed to his father Herman Harms. John saved many letters written by the Ufkes family from the late 1800's and most are written in German. I'm anxiously awaiting the translations, as one of them was signed by my great great grandmother, Annebken (Ufkes) Habben. Cannot wait to hear the latest gossip from Weisens, Germany in 1894.The photograph shown above is actually a post card and was sent to John Harms on December 30, 1907. This was one of the only ones that was written in English. The photo is of the park in Golden, Illinois and was sent by Mary Ost. I'm curious if "Ost" is actually an abbreviation of the last name Ostabuhr because there are Ostabuhr's in our family tree. It appears that Mary was running out of room on the card, I think possibly she abbreviated the last name to save space. Hopefully with a little more digging I'll be able to identify Mary.
The card reads:
Halloh - First of all I want to wish you a
Happy New Year. How are you? Are you
Happy New Year. How are you? Are you
still alive? Better send a postal by return
mail and tell us what you are doing.
mail and tell us what you are doing.
from, Mary Ost. - Golden.
Collection privately held by Mickie Lynch - do not reproduce without permission.
"Cannot wait to hear the latest gossip from Weisens, Germany in 1894." Love that! That's the way I feel when I read old letters written by relatives.
ReplyDeleteThat's really how it feels when you hear these old letters. It's just so wonderful to have a peek into their lives and what was important to them.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by Greta!
What a wonderful blog, I have been enjoying it. I especially like your title. I can't help myself, I am going to have to become a follower. Thanks for leaving a trail to here. jo
ReplyDeleteVery nice. I love the old postcards... anyone's!
ReplyDeleteKeep telling your ancestor stories!
Dr. Bill ;-)
http://drbilltellsancestorstories.blogspot.com/
Author of "13 Ways to Tell Your Ancestor Stories"
It's so great to read old letter and post cards. I am lucky to have some old letters that my great-grandmother received from her sister around 1904. They give such an inside in the lives people led back then.
ReplyDeleteMaria