Miss Grace Huntley was in Schenectady, the city near the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers in east-central New York.
Connected to the Erie Canal, Schenectady (and all the Mohawk Valley) prospered throughout the 19th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenectady,_New_York
Union College, the nation’s first institution of higher education not connected to a religious denomination, was founded at Schenectady in 1795.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_College
We met members of the Huntley family in an earlier postcard story:
“Mother Sends a Postcard from Spain”.
That postcard was mailed by the noted American artist – Samantha Littlefield Huntley.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Littlefield_Huntley
It was received by her son, Grant Huntley who became a civil engineer and taught at Union College in Schenectady,
Members of the Huntley family lived in the Albany/ Troy /Schenectady area of upstate New York and in Manhattan.
In the Research Note (below), we learn that Grace was the daughter of Grant Huntley – so we have now seen a postcard sent to him by his mother and another postcard sent to his daughter.
On her 4th birthday in 1916, Grace received a postcard from Nan.
The postcard was mailed from Schenectady, so we may assume that it was sent by a relative or family friend.
(If “Nan” is the nickname for Grandmother, this postcard also came from Samantha Littlefield Huntley.)
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The face of the postcard displays a spare drawing of bluebirds in a spiraling flight above a rural landscape of green meadow and a stately tree.
Beneath the peaceful scene are a few lines of verse:
“These blue-birds gay
I’ll speed away
With merry greetings
For your birthday –
With many a wish for happiness
Your days to cheer
Your life to bless”
The initials, M. E. S., presumably those of the author, appear at the end of the rhyme.
The image and/or verse was copyright by the Sandford Card Company, but the postcard was published by S. Langsdorf & Co. of New York.
On the reverse, there is no message but the name, Nan.
RESEARCH NOTE
In September of 1912, Grace Huntley was born in Schenectady, New York.
She was the daughter of Grant Huntley (1887-1963) and Grace LaVallee Lake (1889-1977).
(Grace was turning 4 when she received the postcard.)
Grace’s parents were married in Manhattan in August of 1909; Grace was the only child.
At some time, Grant and his wife divorced, as Grant married Laura Palmer Chase (date not recorded).
Grace was raised in Rockville Center, Long Island and attended Wellesley College and Barnard College.
Like her grandmother, she was a talented artist and her studies and her collaborations are notable.
(Her long life was so crammed with incidents and notable events that I have linked her obituary.)
In her mature years, Samantha Littlefield Huntley began painting at the art colony on Cape Ann in Massachusetts,
Her granddaughter, Grace, followed suit and in Gloucester she met Cresson Pugh (1915-1996), the son of a prominent Episcopal priest.
Grace and Cresson were married at the Pugh family estate on Cape Ann in 1940.
Cresson was in the Navy during WW II, and Grace taught at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh and took a job at the advertising firm of Young & Rubicam in New York City.
After the war. Grace and Cresson established themselves in Mamaroneck, a lovely town in Westchester County, NY.
They lived primarily in Mamaroneck for the remainder of their lives.
Grace died in 2010, at the age of 97 (only days before her 98th birthday). She and Cresson are buried in Gloucester, MA.
https://obituaries.gloucestertimes.com/obituary/grace-pugh-772437581
I assume that the significant collection of Huntley family correspondence came into the hands of antique dealers after the death of Grace.
Image from the genealogical website, “Family Search”.
