Herzlichen Glückwunsch

If it's your birthday today, I hope you're spending it in a boat full of roses and forget-me-nots.

The card was addressed to Miss Lola Bonjour, who, despite her name, was not a French dancer. Instead, she was a farmer's daughter born in 1924 in the small town of Apple River, Illinois (current population 366.) Later in life she taught cake decorating and knitting and crocheting. In fact she still knits and crochets. How do I know? Because I had a nice conversation with Lola who is alive and well. This card went off in the mail to her yesterday.

The message on the back of the card reads:

from jours friend.
Andrew Stuessy

I found an Andrew Stuessy, born in Switzerland in about 1864, who lived across the border from Illinois in New Glarus, Wisconsin. Lola couldn't remember offhand who Andrew was, and since there is no postmark it's hard to pin it down.

Tram Tuesday - Hannover, Germany

This unassuming card is special in a couple of ways. For one thing it is a very early card, sent in 1899, and showing an electric tram.  Although there is no message, the recipient and the story surrounding him, manage to trump the card itself.

The other element that's unusual is the City of Hannover's tram service. Hannover started out like many cities with horse-drawn trams, transitioning to electric trams. Bus service was also introduced for rural routes, but the tram service remained until the real transition, to light rail, started taking place in 1975. Some of Hannover's tram cars are now transporting passengers in Budapest, Hungary.

I am curious about the sender of the card. There is no message, but there appears to be a name, "Eustacie", on the front of the card. The recipient is Monsieur Philippe de Las Cases, at the Château de la Baume in Marvejols, Lozere, France. I occasionally check to see if I can find anything about the recipients of the cards I post. I don't usually find houses like this, but this is where Philippe lived:

Source

These days the château is open to visitors. You can see more photographs and read the history (in French) at this site.

Here's what I know about Philippe. He was born in 1881 and wrote a book on the rustic art of Brittany. His father was Emmanuel, Count de Las Cases and a Senator of the 3rd French Republic.  Philippe's great uncle, was also Count Emmanuel (1766-1842), a hugely successful atlas maker, and a great admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte.  The count accompanied Napoléon on his exile to St. Helena, where he acted as his secretary, recording his thoughts and later memorializing them in Mémorial de Ste Hélène. 

Apparently the count also made efforts to teach Napoleon English during their time in St. Helena. Earlier this year a letter that Napoleon wrote to the count, in very broken English, was being auctioned in June, 2012 and was expected to fetch £65,000. Instead, it ended up selling for £325,000.

Part of the château is dedicated to the time spent at St. Helena and some of the memories and souvenirs from the trip.

Here's the back of the card with a big inky fingerprint.

Long Silence - Dundee, South Africa

The only message on this mysterious card is Long silence???
The view is of Victoria Street in Dundee, South Africa, a town named by Scottish settler, Peter Smith, after his home town. Peter found coal close to the surface on his farm and started selling it while continuing to farm. Dundee later became a major coal-mining area. The first battle of the Boer War was also fought nearby.

The building on the right appears to be the Jan Johnson Masonic Hotel. In the foreground, we see a man pulling a rickshaw, a common form of transportation in South Africa at the turn of the century. Another man appears to be carrying a bicycle on his back.

But for the initials, J.E.G, we don't know who the sender was. We can see that he sent the card from the Piggs Peak Development Co. Ltd in Swaziland on the 29th of September in 1905 though. The company and the town were named after William Pigg who discovered a gold reef in the area. At the time this card was sent there many thousands of miners had emigrated from Cornwall, England to South Africa bringing their mining techniques with them. You can see a great photo of Cornish miners at Piggs Peak here.

The card's recipient was Eric F. Smith, Esquire of Barbourne College in Worcester, England. Whether the recipient is related to Peter Smith, founder of Dundee, is a mystery to me.