Miss Lauretta Hilyard lived in Newport, an historic town (founded in 1735) on the Christina Rive in northern Delaware.
In the Colonial Era, Conestoga wagons hauled farm produce to Newport to be loaded on barges for shipment to eastern cities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport,_Delaware
In February of 1906, Lauretta received a postcard from Allene.
Allene mailed the greeting from Newcastle,a city on the Delaware River, about six miles south of Wilmington.
New Castle was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1651, under the leadership of Peter Stuyvesant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Castle,_Delaware
+ + + + + + +
The face of the postcard is a pleasant piece of original art that shows a girl scattering feed for the chickens.
The girl, wearing a long dress with an empire waist, carries a bowl of chicken feed which she is scattering among the chicks and chickens gathered at her feet.
This feeding task was a common chore for children on farms, and would have been a familiar sight to many people growing up in the early 20th century.
The drawing does not have a title, not any marks indicating the provenance; it was printed in Europe.
Because messages on the reverse were not yet permitted, Allene wrote her name on the face.
Sadly, we have no information about the relationship of Allene to Lauretta.
Lauretta preserved the postcard throughout her life.
One hopes that Allene and Lauretta maintained a friendly correspondence for many years.
GENEALOGICAL NOTE
In December of 1895, Lauretta F. Hilyard was born in Newport, Delaware.
She was the daughter of William Johnson Hillyard (1855-1921) and Emma J. Ennis (1856-1900).
Lauretta had two older brothers and a younger sister, although one brother died in infancy.
In June of 1915, the News Journal of Wilmington published the engagement of Lauretta to Hyland Leo Price (1896-1973).
The wedding occurred one week later in the parsonage of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
A son was born to the couple in April of 1916, but Lauretta and her husband were divorced by 1920,
Until her death (at age 71) in 1967, Lauretta lived in the same house in Newport.
She is buried in the St. James Episcopal cemetery in Newport – along with her parents, her three siblings, her former husband, and her son who died in Maryland (aged 82) in 1998.
