County Kerry, Ireland, is the setting for this “One Postcard Saturdays” feature card showing Serpent Lake, Gap of Dunloe, Killarney. This St. Patrick’s Day holiday greeting postcard was published by John O. Winsch, of Stapleton, N.Y., with design copyrighted 1911.

Card front

The sender of the card was Mary Elizabeth (Moore) Elliott, it was postmarked March 18, 1912 from Foxboro, Mass. She sent the card to her sister Julia Ann (Moore) James (1836-1914), also known within my blog postings as “Grandma Julia”. To learn more about Julia, you might want to see my posting: Intro to Grandma Julia and the Bitgood’s Pine Knoll Laboratory.

Mary Elizabeth was married to Joel A. Elliott, they had a daughter Ida Mae Elliott and she married Mr. Pretz, I am uncertain of his first name. Mary died on June 20, 1913, in Foxboro, Mass.

The parents of Mary and Julia were George Martin Royal Van Buren Moore and Harriett Otis Daniels Moore, they had eleven children. In previous and future postings, I have and will explore correspondence from some of the other siblings.

Card back

The message from Mary was challenging to figure out but I think it is pretty close; however, there is still one word that I am not sure of where I have used question marks, her message follows:

Dear Sister,
Glad you arrived home all right. I am quite sick with grip cold. What a dreadful storm this is. NW wind blows like ???  Hope this will find you much
better.

With love, Sister Mary

The card was addressed to Mrs. Julia A. James in Franklin, Mass., in care of William Hooper (Aunt Etta’s husband William). So it would appear that Grandma Julia was staying with Aunt Etta (Julia’s daughter) at that time and I know that Julia had some health issues during her last couple of years. To learn more about Aunt Etta, you might want to read my post: Intro to Aunt Etta And Her Great Adventures.

This may be my last “One Postcard Saturdays” series posting, since I have had an adjustment to my work schedule. It just means that my postings might appear on any day, not just on Saturdays, and not necessarily weekly. With the Saturday series I have tried to keep the posts relatively brief, but I do have the intention of getting some longer blog postings put together or maybe a few series of shorter blogs focused on a related topic or specific family branch and so forth.

The extensive amount of postcards that have been passed down to me have contained many research clues and have provided some interesting stories. However, I have had access to the postcard collections only during the past few years; whereas, I have been collecting my family research notes for several decades.

For me, the time is really now to put some focus on tying together my many years of note-taking from various town halls, historical societies, libraries and archive locations and sharing what I have learned along the way. This blog serves as a way for me to start making that effort–one small piece at a time.

Until next time…