Alice Leeuwenhoek received a postcard wishing her a Joyous Thanksgiving (and a Cordial one) in 1911.
The card was postmarked November 29 because the holiday fell on November 30 in 1911. If this seems late, Thanksgiving didn’t fall on the fourth Thursday of the month until 1941 when FDR changed it.
This card was sent by Alice’s cousin’s Elizabeth. Who in the world was her cousin Elizabeth?
Alice’s mother, Jennie DeKorn, had 2 siblings: her sister Cora had only my grandfather who was 3 in 1911. Her brother wasn’t even married yet and his children weren’t born until the 20s. So what about the Leeuwenhoeks? The only one I know that came to this country (and would have written in English and MAILED A CARD FROM KALAMAZOO) was Gerrit who died single at the age of 21 in the Spanish-American War.
Elizabeth appears to be young–by her handwriting, her slang (kinda), and the general sloppiness of the writing.
Since Alice lived in Kalamazoo and the card was postmarked Kalamazoo, it is also curious why Elizabeth said she wished Alice would “come down sometime.” It’s possible that she just lived on the other side of town since that can seem an enormous distance to children who can’t travel that far by themselves. Alice was 14 in 1911.
Could Elizabeth be a friend?
More mysteries.
What is not a mystery is that I wish you all a blessed Thanksgiving.
The Family Kalamazoo 
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thank you! You, too, Karen!
Second cousin? Or child of family friend? The latter occurred to me because when I was a child we were encouraged to call our parents friends “aunt” and “uncle” and I can remember wondering if that meant their kids were our “cousins.” Happy Thanksgiving Luanne.
Su, thank you so much for the Thanksgiving wishes! Hope your weekend is lovely! On the cousin thing: I think you might be right about the family friend idea! We will see over time–as I accumulate more and more info!
Thanks Luanne. Hopefully one day the connection will become clear.
Wishing you and yours all the very best!!
You too, GP! Hope your holidays are lovely!
Nice card and message. Yet another mystery to solve and maybe a whole new branch of the family to follow.
Thank you for a nice Thanksgiving post.
Oh, that would be something–another branch! Hope your Thanksgiving was peaceful. I owe you an email. I’ve had the flu this week!
Is it possible there were two Alices? What does the “city” mean underneath? Was that once a way to address things within a specific city?
Happy Thanksgiving!
What do you mean by two Alices? I know this card belonged to our Alice. Were you wondering about that? I’ve seen city used that way before on these old Kalamazoo postcards and assumed it was used that way. Happy Day After, too!
I realized that my question made no sense. Obviously you know who received the postcard! I was thinking maybe it was written to a different Alice, but scratch that!
LOL! Or maybe a different Elizabeth, but then there would be two Elizabeths I don’t know about! hahahaha
I just LOVE the post cards from that era – I really think some of them made amazing art work – and you LOVE a mystery so this works well for both of us…I do think it’s possible that to children distances could be measured differently so you have a good guess going on.
Regardless, I loved the card and story…as always.
Thanks, Sheila. I do love a mystery–and genealogy and history really bring so many of them around! The postcards are so beautiful.
So cool! What a fun share! Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving!
I did and hope you did, too! I love finding these old postcards that family members received!
It’s fun and touching how you chase down all these little mysteries. Happy late Thanksgiving to you!!
Same to you, WJ! So many mysteries in life!