The Exciting Birth of a New Blog...

This album contains a priceless treasure...


A treasure that belongs to somebody.


Or somebodies.

These are pieces of history, all rescued from a dumpster.


Someone had moved granny out and had to get rid of some of her household and personal stuff and used a dumpster behind my husband's place of business.


He saw the household stuff and then looked a little closer and saw these beautiful cards and letters...blowing 'round in there, and he dove in and rescued them.  See why I love that man, so much?  He's an original "American Picker"!  Actually, we come from a long line of "pickers" and "savers"!


But I digress.


Back to the interesting project we now have to complete, somehow.


When I ran across these again this past Christmas while I was in the attic digging out Christmas boxes, I thought this might make a great way to solve the mysteries and you could help me...I hope so anyway!


(Did I mention I'm going to need HELP!?)  :0)

From what we've been able to piece together, these are all correspondences both to and from an immigrant to the United States...from her family in both Europe and England.   I recognize places from Switzerland, France and England, but there may be more that I don't know about, because I am not European.  I am not sure if the postcards are from travels made to those countries, or if the person sending the cards actually lived there.


Somehow, she saved both incoming and outgoing pieces of mail.  Relatives from overseas saved her correspondence and she saved it --and theirs--until she either died or was moved into a home.


There are postcards from all over the world, and there are many, many historical events talked about in the personal, handwritten letters contained in this box.


Holding these, and reading them, gave us a tremendous sense of sadness, knowing that a family could so easily toss them, without even realizing what they had.  I have nothing like this, my husband either, none of our families have a written history like this.

My husband was smart to rescue them, this happened around twenty years ago, and he got them before the rain did, and before the contents of the dumpster was taken away and these treasures blew around a landfill, unseen.  We put most of the postcards in a leather album, shown here.

So with the advent of blogs, and the ability of blog entries to be read worldwide, I am going to document these pieces we found on a new blog and hopefully it will provide some help interpreting the languages written on the postcards and in the handwritten letters, and also be able to identify some of the scenery and places in the pictures on the postcards...and I'd love to be able to type out each of the interpreted handwritten letters for you to read the history contained therein, too!


It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm willing to do it.

I'd be so pleased if I could find the people related to the one who meticulously saved all of these wonderful treasures.

If you recognize anything AT ALL in  the smattering of the collection I've shown today, I'd love to know what you can tell me---PLEASE do so in the comments section so that I can then label these postcards with the information...what country, what the personal messages say, this could be quite interesting!

I will set up a blog in the next week or so, and hope to gradually add to it, but first I must sort EVERYTHING in the box by the date.  That is not going to be easy but I'm going to attempt to do it, my family will probably be willing to help out.

See why I just cannot sell these on eBay?


These are someone's history...these beautiful pieces that come to me from before the turn of the 20th century.


From what I've seen so far, there is talk in the personal letters of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, of the Hindendburg exploding, wars, and much more.


All of it will be so fun for us to learn together, don't you think?

A poem, written out in beautiful handwriting, not sure if it's an original composition, or one from the literature of the day, but isn't this beautiful?

So, you, dear readers, can help me out in several ways....


1.)  Give me any help you can in the way of interpreting the languages on the documents.


2.)  Enlisting the help of anyone you know of that can help me with the locations shown on these beautiful places around the world.


3.)  Get the word out, by linking to my new blog ... the more readers I get, the easier the mystery of these documents can be solved.


4.)  Help me dream of a name for my new blog.  Mystery in History?  Letters from Home?  Blogging the Past?


I have to work on this one, and I'd love your help.  Maybe I'll even be able to combine two suggestions in names to make one name that will make sense for this big project.


5.)  If you have done any similar work with found documents, I'd love to hear what you did with your treasures.  This is a pretty good collection,  not just a couple things, and I think it should be treated in a respectful way, and an honor done to it.

I'd love it if you'd become a follower on this new adventure, too.
I will be making an announcement, here, several times so that you'll know where to look for the latest installment on this series of mysteries!




xoxox
Joni