More Vintage Valentines

ANTIQUE CHILDHOOD VALENTINES
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Unique Gilded Age Valentine
from the childhood favorites of my Grandmother
Rovilla Heideman Lindsey (1891 - 1966)
[please see previous post]

The boardering shades of monochromatic pink,
are in keeping with Valentines Day,
yet completely unlike all of the other
multi - colored cards that Rovilla saved over the years.

The gray tones of the little illustration are unusual,
as well as the subject matter -- a humble shepherd child,
instead of the more typical elaborately dressed children
and adults, highly decorated with fans, flowers . . .

Like this one:

Opening up the pink / gray Valentine,
I found it rather endearing that the sender,
who remains unknown, as the card is unsigned,
has managed to include two misspellings,
adding a "u" and an extra "i"

thus R-o-u-v-i-l-l-i-a
instead of R-o-v-i-l-l-a

Yet, it has survived as a multi - generational treasure!
Rovilla kept it all of her life, passed it on to
her daughter (my mother) who passed it on to me.

And now, for some even older Valentines,
see Rovilla's note below:

Rovilla's parents / my great - grandparents:
Anna Mary Miller & William Michael Heideman,
on their Wedding Day ~ March 9, 1886.

Too bad Cupid's head is missing from this one,
but that's a structural hazard of these delicate cards,
especially after 135 years, no matter how expensive!

Notice the use of Anna's married name on the back,
so it must be sometime after 1886.
Notice also the price of this elaborate card:
~ 35 cents in 1900 = $12 in 2022 ~

**************

"Even memory is not necessary for love.
There is a land of the living and a land of the dead
and the bridge is love,
the only survival, the only meaning."

~ Thornton Wilder ~
from the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey

**************

“We have a few old mouth-to-mouth tales; we exhume from old trunks and boxes and drawers letters without salutation or signature, in which men and women who once lived and breathed are now merely initials or nicknames out of some now incomprehensible affection which sound to us like Sanskrit or Chocktaw; we see dimly people, the people in whose living blood and seed we ourselves lay dormant and waiting, in this shadowy attenuation of time possessing now heroic proportions, performing their acts of simple passion and simple violence, impervious to time and inexplicable.”

~ William Faulkner ~
from the novel Absalom, Absalom!
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, March 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Old - Time Valentines
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com