This is copied and pasted from a personal Facebook status update I wrote today (and unedited). Sometimes we don’t think about how one artifact can truly be a writing prompt that never ends.
One postcard: so many things to write about.
I’m 99.9% certain my Grandmother Ufkes wrote this card. It looks like her writing and it’s doubtful she would have had a post card sent to her dad that was sent by one of her siblings.
I’ve stayed in Little America, WY and there’s a chance that my grandparents did too as it’s on the way home from Salt Lake if you’re taking what is now Interstate 80. Interstate 80 wasn’t complete in 1968, but there were other roadways following the same general path (a rabbit hole that I stopped myself from going down too far).
Great-grandpa Habben usually only went by his initials. I have the same first/second initials, but while he used John as his middle name, it actually was Janssen/Johnson on early records since his parents apparently were still in the patronymic mindset in 1881 when he was born. His first name’s different from mine though–he was Mimka.
He lived on Route 4 when it still existed west of Carthage–and a little north as well as I’ve seen Grandpa and Grandma Neill listed with a Route 4 address. They only lived slightly over 6 miles apart.
Grandma did use the Zip Code–they had been in use for 5 years when this card was sent.
I was just shy of two months when this card was sent. I’m not certain if Mom had started school or not yet on 15 August (another rabbit hole I avoided), but if she had I would have been at Grandma Neill’s during the day.
Grandma must have dropped it in the mail shortly after she wrote it–assuming that the “Thurs Morning” reference is correct and she wasn’t off on her days which sometimes happens when travelling.
Mimka would pass away in February of 1969.
All that from a postcard. And I didn’t even mention how much Temple Square has changed since the photograph was taken for this post card.
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