Mrs. Stephen Webster lived in Willink, a village that has been re-formed with new names several times since 1818.
The community is in southern Erie County of northwest New York State; it is now within the town of Aurora.
https://www.townofaurora.com/about-us
“Willink” survived as the name of a post office until 1913.
(It is fortunate that this postcard has the receiving postmark of Willink, as these are quite rare.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willink,_New_York
In December of 1908, Mrs. Webster received a Christmas postcard from her nephew, Arthur.
Arthur mailed the postcard from Buffalo, the great industrial and transportation center on Lake Ontario in western New York.
Buffalo is 21 miles northwest of Willink.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo,_New_York
Arthur addresses Mrs. Webster as “Aunt Em” – which could be Emily, Emma, Emmaline, Amelia, or some other first name.
The face of the postcard bears the drawing of a great crescent of holly.
The holly encircles the words, “Merry Christmas”.
On the reverse, Arthur acknowledges that he sent the card “…to prove I’ve not forgotten you altogether.”
It seems that Aunt Em treasured the postcard as it was preserved in good condition throughout her life.
One hopes that Arthur and his aunt enjoyed a wonderful Christmas and that Arthur made other overtures to his aunt throughout 1909.
GENEALOGICAL NOTE
“Aunt Em” is Emma E. Klingender who was born in Canada in 1842.
Emma married Stephen H. Webster (1830-1899) in the State of New York, sometime around 1862.
Stephen had been married previously; his wife died about five years after their marriage. .
Sadly, the only child of Stephen and his first wife – a baby girl, named “Fayette” – died at the age of 5.
From the chronology of life events, it appears that Stephen and Emma were married shortly after the death of Stephen’s daughter.
Stephen Webster and Emma had three children, a girl and two boys.
“Arthur” does not appear anywhere in the family of Stephen H. Webster.
Alas, the genealogical database which I consulted has no information about Emma’s family of origin.
Possibly because they are Canadian records.
I assume that Arthur was the child of an unidentified sibling of Emma.
Emma Klingender Webster died in Erie County, New York in December of 1923.
She was eighty years old, having lived as a widow for 24 years.
At the time of her death, Emma had no children still living.
