In the 1890s, Sunday Evenings Meant Going Back to Church; For Young People, Sundays Also Meant Courting

In the previous post, Sarah Eva Howe described the typical Sunday morning service at the Methodist Episcopal Church South in Carrollton in the early 1890s. She continued with stories about Sunday afternoons and evenings, a time when teens of all faiths found excuses and opportunities to "court."

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I left off in the other book with Sunday afternoon. At this time we didn’t have “Young People’s Meeting,” as we called it, on Sunday night but on Tuesday night, so when the various meetings were over, we had two or three hours of lovely Sunday afternoon left, to spend in the Sabbath calm, the absolute stillness, broken only by a few buggies going by in the soft flaky dust. (Papa¹ didn’t quite think these Sunday buggy rides were a good thing, but he didn’t condemn them too much, having had a fine horse himself when he was a boy.) 

We had a supper of salt rising bread made by Mama,² apple sauce, jelly and “cold sliced meat” with good country butter, sometimes tea, and at 7:45 were on our way back to church, where the fearful and wonderful “central chandelier” was lighted. (If you saw "The Phantom of the Opera House," it was very much like the one that fell, and we were always afraid this one would.) It was beautiful — with a big glass reflector and about twenty small lamps and many crystals hanging from it. Its one drawback was the multitude of light bugs that came and buzzed around it all the time the service was going on — pretty bad, too, for those who sat under it! We still had that chandelier until almost 1903, when the church was again thoroughly remodeled and electric chandeliers were installed. I believe we had electric lights in the church before that, but the chandelier was still there — perhaps it was wired for lights, now I think of it. I don’t know what became of it finally.

The night service was about the same as the morning, almost but not quite all of the same members present. ... A lot of the boys and girls came together to church at night, as in

Off to Church 

Papa’s day, tho they sat rather far back. Still other boys waited at the back of the church, in bunches, and sat in chairs at the back, and stood at the side to “pick off the girls” as they came in and “escort them home.” I remember Juanita Coltrane ... was visiting then. She was the first “Southern girl” I suppose I ever saw — dark, and in lovely clothes, with a picture hat and plumes; she was at church with Pierce Winslow,³ and I thought I’d never seen anyone so pretty; when they said her name was Juanita I was entranced, it just fitted her. (She is now Mrs. Garrison and is about 70!)

[Sarah inserts some comments about the young people who attended the Catholic church.] The young mill girls and domestic workers, almost all of them Catholics, used to dress in their best, go to Young People’s service at their church at 3 o’clock, and then pair off (many of the marriages were thus arranged) and go down to see the mail boats come in. This was a breathtaking scene, about four on Sunday, and sometimes the up and down boats came in close together. 

Let me tell you that the young girls and boys of “Society” did little more of an exciting nature on Sundays; most of the marriages were fostered by long happy summer evenings either on one’s own porch or in the yard, in porch chairs under the trees, or in the newly fashionable “lawn swings” beginning to be seen — I believe about ’92 or ’93.

Of course a buggy on certain occasions was a must. Many young men had their own or used their father’s, or hired one for other occasions, “going in together,” two boys taking two girls, and dividing the cost.

The Rest of the Week
After Sunday with its many and varied activities, the week was well started. ... Tuesday night was “Young People’s Meeting” attended and enjoyed by everyone under forty (and even over if they wanted to attend, and they often did). Up to 1892, it was a branch of the Christian Endeavor, ... but when Papa found out about the Epworth League, he was one of the pioneers (with C.C. Stoll of Louisville) in getting it started in Kentucky and was state Vice President (in 1895 I think it was), going to all the district and state meetings and to the “international” meeting in Chattanooga in 1895. ... The young people, especially young married people, enjoyed it so much in the early days. ...

Our prayer meeting was Thursday night, and we were all there, Mama playing, as usual.  ... It was very interesting and a wonderful “break” in the week, an inspiration to those who came, and there was a pretty good crowd who did, even a good many young people — mostly those whose parents brought them!

In the meantime, there were day meetings at the church — the first Monday of the month,

Styles worn by women and girls cira 1892

the Ladies Missionary Society, with Miss Sue Browinski as president, and on another day in the month the Parsonage and Home Missionary Society, of which Aunt Lou Howe3 was president and ruling spirit. (Aunt Sallie Goslee Howe⁴ was secretary of this society). The W.C.T.U. met on still another day. ...

There were no Women’s Clubs [in Carrollton], but about 1891, I suppose, Mrs. Henry Winslow⁵ insisted on forming a very serious Chautauqua circle, which really studied the course assigned. Mrs. Atha Gullion,⁶ co-editor of the Democrat, with her husband, had a bookstore on “upper Main” near Fifth, and just under the Winslow & Winslow law offices and next to the Carrollton National Bank. Miss Hallie Masterson and her sister Miss Emma were two other interested members, and Mrs. John Cox.

In Ghent, though, there was a Woman’s Club being formed by Miss Caby Froman,⁷ Uncle Mack’s oldest sister. She was distressed by the rather sketchy morals of the young wives, at least of some of them, around Ghent (for they were considered a rather gay act!) and thought that if they had more to occupy their thoughts with than dress and food (they had so many negro servants living in the town, no white lady ever did much housework). There was not much travel, except on the boats, and not much community life in such a place; so she formed a literary society called the “H. & P. Literary Society." 

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¹ Robert James Howe (1855-1910)
² Alice Ada Cost (1859-1939)
³ Pierce Godbey Winslow (1873-1948), brother of Louisiana Winslow, who married Sarah's uncle William Ficklin Howe in 1873
⁴ Sallie Goslee (1858-1934), who married Sarah's uncle Joseph Brown Howe in 1889
⁵ Lucy Ann Cooper (1863-1950), wife of Henry Moore Winslow (1850-1932)
⁶ Nancy Atha Hanks (1844-1932), wife of Edmund Asbury Gullion (1853-1923)
⁷ Caby M. Froman (1892-1974), daughter of state senator Hiram McMakin "Mac" Froman and Sarah's aunt Sarah Varena "Sallie Howe Froman.

A 'Soft Sunday Hush, the Distant Humming of Bees, the Sleepy Twitter of Birds' — Sunday Mornings at Church, 1892

Sarah Eva Howe recalls the beauty of the recently renovated Carrollton Methodist Episcopal Church South (1891-1892), where her parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents contributed much time and considerable resources over the years. Her description of a typical Sunday service includes words and rituals still in use today at Methodist churches today.

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The church was all done over around this time ... This is as good a place as any to tell about how beautiful it looked. The organ, that first year we were there ... was in the back part of the church up against the window, where the entry is now. There

was a door on each side, and through those doors decorously passed the members, divided into two groups, those who went up to the left side and those who went up the right side. That is where that cleavage started, which continued with us children even when both doors emptied into the same entry. Still, like the lemmings in Norway, we turned to the two staircases, just the same, tho we couldn’t go thru the wall, where the doors had been bricked up.

If the doors as they are now are typical ... the other way was also typical of the intense

One of the windows installed in 1891-1892

sectarianism of the time, for “never the twain should meet.” Many of the members upstairs had not been on the other side of the auditorium from theirs for many a day. The Howes always sat on the side next to our house, the east, and were rather peeved when this window¹ was placed on the west side (tho they said nothing, but I used to sit and look at it and wonder about it). 

There is a beautiful window in the tower that no one ever sees now; it is never lighted from the inside at night, and of course no one looks at it from inside by day. In those days, tho, the tower door was open more often than not, so we could see it. I have stood by the bell rope (which went on downstairs when Frank Whitehead, the colored sexton — you remember him — rang the bell at 8:30, at 9:00, at 10:30, at 10:45 and a few daps at 10:55 and so on for all services on Sunday. ... The [wall]paper was brown (so as not to show dirt I imagine) and it worried me because there was a false alcove on the flat wall behind the pulpit; that is, there was the shaded appearance of one in the pattern of the plain paper. I have traced that alcove hundreds of times with my eyes, wishing that just once I could step inside it. I have now, for the organ and the rooms behind it have been put there, so that when I go in, I have a sort of “Back of the North Wind” feeling.

Before the organ was moved up there, the church was very square and flat, with rows of seats on each side making the “Amen Corner” where older people, slightly deaf or extra devout, would sit. When the organ was put there after the revolutionary door closing at the rear, all that was changed was that instead of two amen corners, there was just one — the choir sat facing the preacher sideways, on a slightly raised platform, on three or four benches set one behind the other. (No one ever sat on the front one unless there was a revival and an extra big choir.) 

Carrollton Methodist Episcopal Church circa 1895

You don’t remember the organ, which is now in the Ghent church, but it was a Pilcher organ and had a lovely tone when Mama played it! Mr. Pilcher supervised its “moving up,” and Mama became acquainted with him, as she was just taking over the organ then. (I am pretty sure now this was in 1891.) He showed Mama a little about the pedals, which so thrilled her; she was always trying them out after that — but always afraid she would step on the wrong one!

The floor was bare, but there was a strip of Brussels carpet up each aisle. One pew, I forget whose, had a strip of red carpet under it and a cushion on it; the lady there had said she was cold! We regarded this as the height of effeminacy, tho we didn’t consciously call it that. As to kneeling benches, of course, we had none; all except the sick, the hardened, strangers, or the fashionable (or perhaps infirm or old) knelt facing the pew. There was carpet on the double platform (one smaller, on a larger one) in which the pulpit stood, surrounded by the altar rail, at which we knelt for communion, and for prayers at different meetings. Tho there was no outward altar, I know that in the hearts of people like my father and many others there was surely an invisible one, before which they knelt at this rail. ...

However, the drabness of the church was transformed and glorified by the sunlight pouring thru the lovely windows, eight of them, and three at the back of the church. I’m inclined to think those were there always, tho the other windows were frosted white glass when we came. ...

I can close my eyes now and go back to that summer Sunday morning of 1892, with the lovely windows opened to let in the soft air (also bees and an occasional bird) and the scents from the flowers (at our house and yard) and the grass of the old, sweet churchyard, and the wild roses. There was a soft Sunday hush over everything, just the distant humming of bees (there was probably always a swarm in the tower, along with the pigeon’s nests) and the sleepy twitter of birds, then the soft drone of the preacher’s voice, or the organ music in the “voluntary,” “offertory” or “processional.” We had probably sung “Welcome, Delightful Morn” and meant it with our whole hearts. 

Then the “opening hymn” standing and the second hymn sitting (or the other way about, perhaps), then the prayer (ten minutes at least, and were those who came in and had to be seated after the prayer looked on with critical eyes!). Then the anthem, the lesson read by the preacher, the announcements, sometimes made by Uncle Will,² a second hymn (sitting), the collection, while Mama played an “offertory,” then the sermon. The Gloria Patri was only sung on special occasions, generally to take the place of the Doxology which otherwise closed the service (plus the benediction). However, a good many ministers called for a final hymn, in which they “opened the doors of the church,” sometimes they sang one verse after another of this if it looked like more were coming, and some ministers had another prayer after the sermon, which could last another ten minutes. 

We never recited the Apostle’s Creed — it was just something on the back of the Sunday school magazines and in the back of the songbooks; it was just as well, for if anyone had mentioned The Holy Catholic Church³ at that time in our pews, half the congregation would have wailed in horror.

The “lesson” was generally quite lengthy, for they read the old and new testament lessons both, often from Deuteronomy and Romans, or Leviticus and Hebrews, and therefore hard for an eight-year-old to follow, tho I made a polite attempt, generally, but fell over against Mama’s shoulder midway.

Afterwards, we met ... in the back of the church, and then went home to such a good tho easily prepared dinner — sometimes taking company, or perhaps a whole family would eat at a brother’s or sister’s house and “spend the day,” or if the Presiding Elder was there, all would vie in inviting him home. He was “Brother” Vaughn for four years. (They told me afterwards to call him “Dr.” It was the first time I had known you could call a preacher that!) We almost always had a beef roast for dinner. Papa was felt to be extravagant in paying 40 cents for his, but we used it in “sliced cold roast beef” for three meals at least afterwards. ... He could slice it right across in such thin, lovely slices — he was an artistic carver. 

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¹Possibly the new stained glass window contributed by brothers William Ficklin Howe, Joseph Brown Howe, and Robert James Howe. William was married to Louisiana "Lou" Winslow, sister of William Beverly Winslow, who with his brother George Bohrum Winslow was instrumental in organizing the purchase and installation of new windows for the church in 1891-1892. (Source: Our Church: A History of the Carrollton United Methodist Church by Hallie Masterson)
²William Ficklin Howe, brother of Sarah's father
³In the Apostle's Creed,"catholic" is not capitalized; it means "universal."

Images courtesy Carrollton United Methodist Church, Carrollton, Kentucky.

Don't Tell Papa! Sarah Plays Her First 'Kissing Game'

At the tender age of 7, Sarah Eva Howe gets an invitation to a party in her Carrollton, Kentucky neighborhood. Most of the children in attendance are a bit older than Sarah, but most are no older than 10.

Imagine Sarah's surprise when a kissing game begins! She joins in, though, and feels the flutter of young (very young!) love for the first time. Who knows how this budding relationship might have developed had Sarah not fallen ill and recovered only after the object of her affection had moved to New York.

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I’ve omitted a very important interlude, which probably occurred between the spell of grippe and my fall; indeed I believe it celebrated Valentines Day. Miss Moreland, the

indomitable teacher, had a brother, Houston, and a sister, Hattie, a very pretty, slim, dark girl about two years older than I. The Morelands gave a party for her, and most of the second and third grades and the fourth, her grade, ... were invited. I don’t know how I, only 7 years old, got in, but it must have been because of Mildred [Goslee] — she lived across the street from her, on Main Street, just below the Richland Hotel; they had a “floor” in the big plastered building across from that.

I don’t believe Jenne [Howe, one of Sarah's cousins] was there, and I don’t know how Mama came to let me go. Certainly she had no idea of the type of party it would be where kissing games would be played! I had heard so much said ... about “sweethearts” but never expected to have one myself, being a most unromantic looking type, plump (not to say fat) with straight hair in tight braids ... and most of my costumes were of the square, mannish type guimpe (“gamp” we called it) and dresses of gingham or sailor type blouses of plaid — tho spring marked a little change, and Papa had Mrs. Alice Smith Conn (Uncle John’s sister) make me a really lovely hat, and I had two dresses of a much more feminine cast, made by Mrs. Losey herself, who had a small frame “office” at the side of the old store.

Then we played “Love in the Dark.” (Papa would have died at that idea!) The girls had to choose a boy and stand in the dark room as each successive boy in a wave grabbed at one and took her to a chair in the light. If you were the wrong one, you soon got up and left. I heard the girls disputing about the boys, and to my own astonishment I "put in my oar." “Let me take Henry Caldwell!” quoth I. He belonged to that sad, tragic Caldwell family who lived in the little house on Main Street near the Conn grocery (too near!), and his younger brother Hugh, a small round-faced secretive looking boy, was in my grade. But Henry was different from all of them — he had red hair; he — well, he was just different. 

So he found me in the dark and I didn’t have to leave him, and he and I joked (imagine!) about the old maids who had to get out. (I remember that, and I was 7 1/2! and so well raised!) and he chose me for all the games after that, and next day at school Hattie searched me out at recess and said, “Sallie, Henry says he’s in love with you!” Well, it is just a different, queer feeling that swells you up, different from anything else. I began watching to see him go in the room ... to his 3rd grade exalted seat, and one never-to-be- forgotten day he waved at me with a sly grin, his red hair flaring as he jumped from desk to desk before school opened, by putting his hands down and springing forward. I waved back, and I think that was the end. Soon after that I started on that long road that led through the dark, and when I came out, Henry was gone. By some miracle he escaped the fate of the rest of his family. Some relative took him to raise; he went to New York, and I believe did well, that red head (and that must be why I’ve always admired red hair!) has always moved proudly through life. I’ve read about him in the Democrat several times since but have never seen him again. A good thing that my eyes had all that trouble — maybe.

I am not clear even as to the dress worn to this party, but it may have been the serviceable brown cloth “best” dress Mrs. Losey made me which I wore to Naomi’s wedding (it was that winter, I think, late 1890 at Grandpa Arnet’s house) which had a “lay down collar” edged with ... ribbon and a bunch of the same ribbon at one side of the waist, in a sort of “loveknot”(!). The shirt was edged with it, too.

Anyway, the party was a new experience for me; we played a game where we sang:
“I wouldn’t have none of your wheat,
Wouldn’t have none of your barley,
wouldn’t have none of your oats or rye
To make a cake for Charlie.
Charlie he’s a nice young man
Oh Charlie he’s a dandy
Charlie he’s a nice young man
He gave the girls all candy
 
(Nice standard of niceness!)

We also played “Skip to my Lou,” my first experience, but how I loved it! But at first it seemed no one skipped with me, for so many of the girls were older and more glamorous (tho I’d never heard that word).
 

Ceiliúradh! For the Howes of Carrollton, Kentucky, Celebrating St. Patrick's Day Meant Honoring Their Irish Ancestors

John Howe, the Immigrant, c1880

The scrapbooks of Sarah Eva Howe Salyers are full of reminders about her Irish heritage. Her grandparents John and Sarah Brown Howe were born in Ireland and, with their firstborn child, left there for America in 1847. A beautiful portrait of John has been handed down from one generation to the next. I know of no photograph of Sarah.

All things Irish were of interest to Sarah, and that interest remains alive and well in generations living today. Throughout Sarah's scrapbooks are bits and pieces of Ireland-themed items and St. Patrick's Day mementos. The greeting card below is one of my favorites. The term "mavourneen" comes from the Irish Gaelic expression meaning "my darling." On the card, someone has written "Shant." Sarah's children, famous in the family for the nicknames they gave each other, often called their mother "Shant." While they meant it as an endearment, it was in fact a reference to "shanty Irish," a relatively derisive term used to classify Irish people of lower economic and social classes. Continue reading to find out why Americans could have used this term to describe the pre-emigrant Howe clan. The term originated in this country and was not used in Ireland.

Also below are links to a diary kept by two of John's sons when they visited relatives in Ireland in 1876. Reading it is almost like being there.

Irish-themed greeting card, c1925

The next image poses a mystery. I can find no reference to the poem online, but I also cannot say that Sarah Eva Howe, who wrote many stories and verses, wrote it herself. Even though I have proven dates for births and deaths of Sarah's ancestors who lived in the 1800s, I see no ancestor who was born (or died, for that matter) in either 1826 or 1896. March 17, of course, is St. Patrick's day, but I don't know how that fact fits with the years or the poem. I welcome ideas about that.

Both Sarah and her daughter Mary Alice played bridge and Rook and saved many tally cards in the scrapbooks. These three from the late 1920s and early 1930s have distinctively Irish themes. The transcription under the first image takes a stab at reading Sarah's hard-to-decipher handwriting.

Transcription: "A tally at one of the Bridge Club parties (Banker Bob Feamster, Faye Mary Anderson, Harold Ashley, etc.)

This tally card, identified as "St. Patrick's Rook party at Virginia Bond's [19]27," is homemade.

This undated newspaper clipping, possibly from the University of Kentucky student newspaper or one of the Lexington newspapers of the 1930s, describes a bridge party hosted by Kappa Delta sorority. I can imagine Sarah's daughter Mary Alice, a UK student and member of Kappa Delta, arranging this party based on a St. Patrick's Day theme.

Some of John and Sarah Brown Howe's descendants traveled to Ireland to walk where their ancestors walked. Two of their sons, John Irvin Howe and his younger brother Robert James Howe (who would become Sarah's father), traveled from their home in Carrollton, Kentucky, to Ireland in 1876. The travelers  kept a detailed diary of days spent with their Irish grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Their diary entries paint word pictures that take us to Ireland to meet the Howe and Brown clans of that place and time. Had the same people been living a similar lifestyle in America, they would have been known as "shanty Irish," and that's how Sarah's children came up with her nickname "Shant." Of course, immigrant John Howe established himself in America as a successful tailor, woolen mill owner, and retailer, so he and his family would have left the ranks of the "shanty Irish" to become "lace curtain" Irish.

A transcription of the Howe brothers' travel diary is posted in three parts:

Part 1: Robert and John Howe Arrive in Ireland

Part 2: Roast Duck With All the Trimmings

Part 3: Robert and John Say Goodbye to the Howes, the Browns, and Ireland

In 2007, one of Sarah's grandsons, Al Hays, with his wife and their two sons, visited Ireland and the Howe ancestral places. One stop was St. John's Parish Church in Fivemiletown, County Tyrone. In this church Al's great-great grandfather was christened. Al's research indicates that the building today is the same building where the christening took place circa 1823, although he can't be sure.

Two of the immigrant John Howe's third great-grandsons, Mark Hays and Michael Hays, in front of St. John's Parish Church in Fivemiletown, County Tyrone, Ireland

Al wrote to me about St. John's and his Howe ancestors: "John Howe may not have actually been a member of that church, because Protestants were required to make births and marriages 'official' at the local Church of Ireland (England) even if they weren't members. This is one thing that our largely Presbyterian Scots/Irish ancestors resented and that acted as a stimulus to migration to America."

Another stop was Cavanaleck Presbyterian Church in Fivemiletown. On this site (but not in the same building) on June 2, 1845, Al's second great-grandparents John Howe and Sarah Brown were married. Read more about the Hays family's visit to Ireland in the post dated April 2, 2017.

Howe descendants Al Hays (right), Michael Hays (left), and Mark Hays (center) at the wedding site of their Irish ancestors John Howe and Sarah Brown

In the Howe family, sentiment remains strong for the Ireland homeland. My husband is the Howe descendant at our house, but I have my own Fitzsimmons and Arnold ancestors from the Emerald Isle. I share the sentiment for all things Irish, and so I bid you a Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Humor in the 1930s: Some Things Never Change

The scrapbooks of Sarah Eva Howe Salyers can tell us a lot about the past – and shine some light on the present in the process.

Today, as I browse a scrapbook centered on the early 1930s, I find a number of cartoons that strike me as both funny and timely. With a few tweaks of art and vocabulary, many of these cartoons could be pertinent to what people are talking about now.

First, the topic of personal finance. Many of us don't bother to carry cash anymore but use credit cards or electronic apps to buy things. In the late 1920s and early '30s, buying on credit was a new option but apparently a popular one, as illustrated in this cartoon:

The advent of consumer credit and buying on the "installment plan" correlated with the popularity of that newfangled mode of transportation, the automobile. The parallels between the economy then and now are striking.

Then there's the issue of personal income. The following cartoon from the 1930s reminded me of today's debates about salaries, tips, commissions, and minimum wage.

Now to the topic of relationships between men and women. Judging from the next four cartoons, human nature has not changed at all.
• Parents still embarrass their teenage children. (Someone labeled the young woman "MAS" for Mary Alice Salyers, Sarah's daughter. I have no idea who the mother and the young man represent. Maybe a boyfriend and his mother?)

• Young people still claim they're getting together to "study."

• The next two resonate with today's headlines about men who feel, shall we say, entitled.

• Then there's the matter of expectations. In the 1930s, men (in this case, boys) paid the tab when entertaining their girlfriends. After the Women's liberation movement of the 1960s and '70s and subsequent pushes for equality, women can offer to split the cost or even pay the bill themselves without raising eyebrows.

Here are more 1930s cartoons to enjoy.

A typical New Year's Eve bash?

(Mary Alice was a huge fan of elephants, so the scrapbooks are full of pachyderm references.)

If you're too young to remember Eddie Cantor, this won't be funny. He was known for his large, dark, rolling eyes, which he used for effect in his comedy skits and dramatic roles. His nickname was "Banjo Eyes." Dare I say "google" him? 

 

Then, of course, there's always talk about the weather. Today we say "in like a lion, out like a lamb" when the month of March starts with winter-like days but ends with warm temperatures. In 1932, today's lion apparently was a wolf, and he arrived cloaked as a sheep, only to shed that disguise to bring cold, blustery weather back again. Personally, I hope March 2018 in Kentucky is a lamb from start to finish!

Valentines from the 1930s – Including a 'Complaint' From a Man Who Resents Being Ogled by 'Gals'

Today comes another set of valentine greetings from the scrapbooks of Sarah Eva Howe Salyers. Most of these were designed for children; a few at the end were not. I hope you enjoy these paper glimpses into another era.

This card was popular for several years. I've found duplicates in several of the scrapbooks. The front of the card unfolds to create a 3-dimensional scene.

Popeye first appeared in comic strips in January 1929, then in short films in 1933 The next image shows the inside of this card. 

These two pieces are separate in the scrapbook, but they are based on the same theme. I tried to imagine how they could be two sides of the same card, but the shapes are so different, I doubt that was the case.

Remember Lawrence, Mary Alice's suitor introduced in the post of Jan. 21, 2018? He was a beekeeper, so I can't help but wonder if he sent this card and the next to her.

This card and the ones that follow have more grown-up themes. Note that the one signed by Lawrence uses the term "girl friend."

The inside of the "cantaloupe" card

I refuse to assign too much meaning to this "ice cube" card!

Last but not least, this role-reversal message. Oh, to know who sent it and who received it!

Please look at previous posts to see antique and vintage valentine cards preserved in the scrapbooks of Sarah Eva Howe Salyers.

Valentines from the 1910s to 1930s – Some Sweet, Some Cute, and Some That Would Be in Questionable Taste Today

 Sweet or sassy, floral or funny, there's a valentine for every person and purpose – even in the early 1900s. Here are a few valentines received in that time by Sarah Eva Howe Salyers and members of her family.

The first card, probably from the 1910s, would raise eyebrows today because of the "mooning" suggestion and the mildly racist slang attributed to the Native American population. Did you notice the swastika symbol in the top corners? I didn't until they were pointed out to me. I didn't know until I researched "swastika in America" that the symbol is one of the world's oldest cross emblems, formed with four "L's" standing for Luck, Light, Love, and Life. It was a good-luck sign for centuries, and Native Americans as well as other segments of the population used it in art, clothing, home decor, and architecture. The symbol was abandoned here when it became associated with the Hitler regime.

The next card, with its caricature of a boy in Chinese attire, could also be considered politically incorrect by today's standards.

The following cards, many of them addressed to Sarah's children, are from the first years of the 1900s through maybe the late 1920s. That's my best guess, as dates are not noted in Sarah's scrapbooks.

The handwriting "He stole all hearts" may have referred to Sarah's youngest child, David, who would have been younger than 5 years old when this card was sent.

Next time, we'll look at valentines that I think are from the 1930s. In the meantime, take a look at some lacy, romantic valentines dating from the late 1880s to 1920. You'll find them in the Happy Valentine's Day post dated February 12, 2017.