Happy Halloween

The old Halloween cards stand in stark contrast to the Halloween decorations currently available in stores. I went to look for some decorations, because I want trick-or-treaters to see our house as a welcoming one. Unfortunately, about the only decorations I could find were severed limbs, ghouls with various nasty wounds, huge snarling rats, and plastic gravestones. The gravestones are O.K., but what happened to friendly ghosts, smiling jack-o-lanterns, black cats, and witches on broomsticks?

Here are the backs of the cards in the same order.

The message, sent to Miss Marian Bacon in Marietta, New York in 1922, reads:

Dear Marian,  How are you and Mama + Papa? Are you a good girl? Did you have a Jack O' lantern? It is cold her and has snowed quote a little this week. be a good little girl because Santa will soon be here. Your friend Ella

The second card was sent to Miss Louise Ely in Clyde, New York in 1909.

Lovelights Bussing

This bussing has nothing to do with four wheels. We're talking about kisses here.

 Bussing Meaning and Definition from Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Buss \Buss\ (b[u^]s), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Bussed (b[u^]st); p. pr. & vb. n. Bussing.] To kiss; esp. to kiss with a smack, or rudely. ``Nor bussed the milking maid.'' --Tennyson. Kissing and bussing differ both in this, We buss our wantons, but our wives we kiss. --Herrick.

Other definitions do not offer a distinction between bussing and kissing, but refer to a relationship to the French word for kissing (baiser) or Welsh and Gaelic words for lips (bus).

These postcards were released in 1909 just about the time the tungsten filament light bulb was being introduced. That's not to say that the events are related in any way, although it's a possibility.

Here are the backs of the cards, which are almost as fun!

The message to Miss Myrl Grose of Muncie, Indiana, reads:

Dear Friend Myrl. I have not heard from you and I want you to write because i am getting kind lonesom down here because you dont write so be sure and write if nothing is the matter

I love my hugging But oh your Kisses,,

Be sure and write me onley get a bout a week and half to work and I will be up their.

By By

From Yours truley

Emerson Hiday (?)

Brightwood 2138 Denot St.(?) 

 Interesting that the back of the last one is different.

Be sure to stop by Sepia Saturday, where you may see a different kind of bus. You can see more cards from the Lovelights series here at Postcard Roundup, and here at Postcardy.

Frog in Your Throat

Frog in Your Throat was a popular brand of throat lozenges at the turn of the century.  They printed a number of cards like this one around 1905 that generally featured a lovely lady in the foreground and a leering frog in the background. The lozenges contained licorice, coltsfoot, wild cherry bark, horehound, cubeb, capsicum, menthol, potassium bitartrate, peppermint, sugar, and other aromatics. Here's a link to a website that shows a nice collection of Frog in Your Throat ephemera.

The back of the card is nice too. It's labeled as a Private Mailing Card instead of a postcard. Prior to the congressional act in 1898, the US Government had a monopoly on printing postcards. After 1898, private mailing cards were allowed, but until 1907 only the address and no message was allowed on the back of the card. That means that a lot of these cards are mysterious; unless the sender wrote on the picture side, there's little indication of who sent it.

While we don't know who sent the card, we do know that it was sent to Miss Prudence Davis of Portland, Maine. A short search revealed that Prudence Augusta Davis (of the same address) studied at Smith College and married Melville H. Marston on Thursday, November 6, 1913.