Deep Roots Family Tree Blog

It’s been about a month since I researched one of these postcards. I never expect to find anything right away but newspapers.com delivered. When I started inputting names into the search field, I immediately got some hits.

Yay!

This postcard appeared to a to Mrs. C. A. Harrison in Minnesota from Mariann (?), who sent it from Wyoming.

Dear folks, I wanted to write a letter but thought you might enjoy this card. Haven’t seen anything but ? and dust?? Well – we have snow! There was a little white on the ground yesterday morning and nearly a little blizzard last night. Pretty flakes falling this morning. The sun was out for a little while but it looks colder now. We moved in our ? last Sun with ? bedding and are most comfortable. What to a reception given by ? Col. last night; had a nice girl stay with Marcia. We were gone from 6-8:30. Brought a nice couple from Ill. home with us for a while. Love to all, Maryann?

There are a couple of sentences in the postcard that I couldn’t quite make out, unfortunately. The postcard its self held up very well and the writing is mostly legible; the ink isn’t super faded. “I wanted to write a letter but I thought you would like this card.” This was the first thing that stuck out to me. The sender obviously had a lot to say, maybe a letter would have been a better idea (lol).

Anyway! The first thing I found was a anniversary announcement for Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Harrison. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune dated March 17, 1946, they had been married for 50 years, their golden anniversary, and their three daughters entertained the many guests that came to celebrate.

About 5 years later, in the Minneapolis Star dated 4/4/1951, I found an obituary for Harold F. Harrison, aged 36.

Harold Farnum Harrison (Farnum was mom’s maiden name) was the son of C. A. Harrison. I then took to ancestry to see if I could find any more information about Harold’s death. According to the Find a Grave index, Harold was born in 1914 in Oregon to Charles Albert Harrison and Hattie Lillian Harrison. The 1950 federal census for Minneapolis shows Harold, at 35, living with his parents and had “Ot” listed for work. Ot stands for “Other, indicating that a person’s primary activity during the week was not categorized as working, keeping house, or being unable to work.” He could have, for example, been attending school, temporary illness, or being on vacation.

If we go back to the 1940 census, Harold was living with his parents (dad listed as Chas). Chas is listed as a caretake for a wholesale (?), Hattie was a proprietor at a cafeteria, and Harold was a cashier, likely at the same cafeteria that his mom worked at.

He is also listed as having completed one year of college. Between ancestry and Newspapers.com, I was unable to find a cause of death for Harold.

His parents passed away shortly after. Charles in 1952 and Hattie in 1954.

Despite having many resources available, I was unable to track down the postcard’s sender.

Thanks for reading.