Thanks for Coming Along

The Daily Postcard is celebrating its second birthday today. Whether you just stopped by for the first time or you've been checking in for the last two years, I thank you for coming along for the ride.  Reader comments really add a lot to the stories behind these cards, so thanks to all of you who have contributed historical information as well as opinions and observations.

I don't know who these two fellows are, but I think they're heading into town to get a couple shots of whiskey in celebration of this blog milestone.
Here's the back of the card. Based on the stamp box design, this card was printed between 1904 and 1918.

Josephine of Binghamton

In response to the Sepia Saturday theme post, Beatriz of Spain, I give you Josephine of Binghamton! Josephine Tomecek was born in Binghamton, New York in 1931. She was a bright spark all her life, with a positive outlook that often defied reality. Here she is in about 1937 with her brother Milton.

Josephine had known her husband John from an early age, but he didn't pay much attention to her until he returned from World War II and found that she had matured into a lovely young woman. They were married in 1949. The picture below is thought to be an engagement photo.

John and Josephine had five sons. I married one of them. After raising the boys, Josephine suffered cheerfully through many physical ailments until she died on September 3rd three years ago. She was an inspiration and is greatly missed.

Josephines's parents, Gabriel and Elizabeth, came from Strážnice in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. After they came to the United States, they both worked at the Endicott Johnson Shoe Company in Binghamton. I will post some cards from the Endicott Johnson Shoe Company next week.

More Greetings from the Cemetery

If I received a postcard with a picture of a cemetery on the front, I might wonder if it was a bad omen. Here are two cemetery postcards from Springfield and Concord, Massachusetts.

And here's the cemetery in Concord where Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, is buried.

Here are the backs of the postcards.