Miss Edna Marquette lived in Douglasville, the oldest settlement of Europeans in Berks County, Pennsylvania.

(A very long time ago, we looked at postcard stories related to the Mouns  Jones House and St. Gabriel’s (“Old Swedes”) Episcopal Church which survive from this early Swedish settlement on the Schuylkill River.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglassville,_Pennsylvania

Sometime around 1905, Edna was given a postcard from her friend, Olive.

The face of the postcard bears an illustration of a “Sunbonnet” character ironing on a make-shift ironing board.

The item being ironed is very small, perhaps for a child.

These Sunbonnet characters were very popular, and I am sure that this postcard is part of a series that shows housekeeping tasks for each week-day.

I cannot recall if there is a childhood rhyme which assigns tasks to the six working days of each week.

This image was copyright in 1905 by the Ullman Manufacturing Company, postcard publishers of New York.

https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=Ullman+Manufacturing+Co&view=&dsort=title

Because the reverse could contain only the address, Olive writes a message on the face.

Olive writes, “A picture of you when you iron your fine white waists”.

(The woman’s “shirtwaist” was the high-necked, often lacy, long-sleeved blouse that was common to the era.)

Olive also mentions “ticks”, about which we learn nothing.

One hopes that Edna found the postcard amusing and that she and Olive remained friends and correspondents for many years.