Thanksgiving Greetings from Mabel

And here's the back of the card.

The message to Mrs. Claud Light reads:

Dear Sis,

I am anxious to see the new kitchen. Write and tell me what you are going to give the girls for Christmas so I won't be giving the same things. Lovingly, Mabel

Ludwig's Restaurant in Neu Pirken

Ludwig Hübler had something he called a Restauration (a cross between a restaurant and a station?) in Neu Pirken, Germany. There were hotel rooms,  an outdoor bowling alley, and a dining room. In 1910, around the time this card was sent, Pirken and Neu-Pirken had a population of 757, almost double what it had been ten years earlier.

Ludwig sent this card to Mr. Karl Bernt in nearby Görkau as a friendly invitation to something, though I'm not sure what. I have trouble making out the old German script unless it's written very neatly. In any case, both Neu Pirken and Görkau both became part of Czechoslovakia after World War II. Pirken is now known as Březenec and Görkau is known as Jirkow.

A Sight for Sore Eyes - Lead and Opium

Here's a trade card from about 1880, advertising Dr M. M. Fenner's eye salve.  Dr. Fenner was a well-respected, wealthy, and interesting fellow who lived in Fredonia, New York. You can read all about him here. The article even discusses the ingredients for some of Dr. Fenner's remedies, but not the eye salve.

Although we don't know what the ingredients of the eye salve were, here are some recipes for eye remedies from Dr. Chase, a contemporary of Dr. Fenner.

Oh, you don't want to put lead in your eye? O.K., let's try something else.
Yeah, opium, that's it!

Here's the front page from Dr. Chase's book, in case you want to look for your own copy or sue him for causing you to go blind.