A special valentine for you

I don't think I could say it any better than Emerald Eyes has--a list of favorite love songs, mature thoughts about love, and memories of grandparents. Go for it.

And then from me, a scan of one of my mother's valentines, from Billy Smith, a school mate at Pine View School, I assume. This is probably from the early 1920s and was embossed paper with cut edges, "Whitney Made Worcester, Mass." The inside message with a line drawing of a little boy swinging on a fence reads:

I love you little
Valentine,
But I am very shy,
And if you think
you could be kind,
Please smile as you
pass by.

Pineview School, Lee County, Illinois, Mother is 2nd from the left, front row
The little girl third from the right in the back row is Arlene Beachley David, one of my mother's closest friends. I just looked her up and saw on the Manchester College website that she died January 2, 2006. She married later in life and never had children (I attended her wedding), but I talked to her on the phone maybe in 2003, and she was living with her deceased husband's niece.

Happy Valentine's Day

This is a valentine my mother received when she was in Pine View school in Lee County, Illinois, from a schoolmate named Belva. From what mother said, they did not make a big deal about Christmas, but obviously from her collection of valentines (which included some belonging to her older brother) that she saved over 80 years, this was a time of great fun for the children. The inside message:
Here's a little valentine
For you, little friend of
mine,
You were first to win my
heart,
And will always hold the
larger part

The card is made of embossed paper with a cut-out edge by Whitney Made of Worcester, Mass.

I commented on the value of paper collectibles here, and show two others from her collection.

I selected this one today because of the snow scene, and because it is contemporary realism for the era. Most of her valentines depict 19th and 18th century scenes with a lot of lace, or are sort of cartoonish.

Enjoy the day!

Friday Family photo

This isn't the best quality because it is a scan of a photocopy, but I was so thrilled to get it last week. The handsome young man on the right is my Uncle, and I think I know why my Mom used to say my brother (and now his son) resembled him. This is the graduating class of the country, one room school, Pine View, in Lee county, Illinois. Often in these rural schools, the teacher wasn't much older than the students (which in fact is still true in some high schools where a new teacher/graduate might be 22, and some of the students 18 or 19). However, I think it is interesting that the teacher and her 3 female students are all wearing identical dresses. I'm wondering if it was a home economics project, or if the photographer had clothing on hand for the photo shoot. Is anyone an expert on studio photography, or have you seen this before? I know many photographers in those days had suit coats and ties on hand for the men, and much later when my father had his formal portrait taken in the Marines in his dress blues, he didn't really own the uniform.

1916, when this photo was taken, was a good time for farm families, and my grandparents were doing well. My uncle went on to high school, I think he had a year or two of college, and then travelled in Europe (WWI was over). However, the disaster in this country known as the Great Depression was actually affecting farmers by the early and mid-1920s because many, including my grandparents, had over extended themselves during the war because of the demand for food. When the war was over, the market for their crops stopped, but they still owed on the loans.