February 14, 1978
Picture #1 thru #6 – Postcards of earlier times.
My oh my, how times have changed…I don’t mean in the last few years. There were the flapper days…the hazz age…rock and roll…hard rock, etc. I mean times have changed since the turn of the century.
The pictures with this story will prove it.
Having the access to a postcard collection, the property of Charles McPherson Fostoria, I started through it to find those endearing sentimental gems which young lovers exchanged at valentine time more than 50 years ago.
In minutes I had selected more than I could use…but I was so fascinated with the variety, for every special day. There were appropriate ones for Halloween…Thanksgiving…Christmas…New Years…Easter…Birthdays…Leap Year…you name the situation and they had an appropriate card. There were scores of gems.
You older readers will understand my descriptive terms when I say that some of the cards were real to the touch…raised…embossed…velvety…glittery. Beautiful colors. The flowers, birds, everything looked 3-D and real.
Many of the postcards of that era were produced in Germany. They had developed processes for making them and knew how to make the brilliant, beautiful colors that adorned them.
Perhaps some of the younger readers of this column have seen the type of cards I have described…having stumbled across them among your parents or grandparents “special things” packed away in a box in the attic. If you haven’t you have missed a treat out of the past…a time when (in my opinion) life was slower, easier, more beautiful.
At this point as I write, I do not know how many of the cards I picked will be suitable for reproduction, with the accepted standards of this newspaper. Whichever ones are used, perhaps you can use your imagination and visualize the beauty of each one…the subject…the color…because I do know they cannot reproduce them like they actually are.
Do you agree times have changed?