Florence Rumsey was the “school-ma’am” for a school in Minnesota.
(I cannot decipher the postmark.)
In January of 1912, she sent a postcard to Mr. Vern Berryman in Spring Valley, Minnesota.
Spring Valley is small city in southeast Minnesota, near the border of Iowa.
(For lovers of the “Little House” books, Almanzo Wilder farmed near Spring Valley after the family left Malone, NY.)
The face of the postcard is a photograph of sheep in winter; a shepherd seems to be accompanying them from a barn in the background.
(Unless the sheep were headed to the barn and turned to have their picture taken!)
On the reverse, Florence writes a light-hearted, self-deprecatory message, describing herself in the third person.
It seems that Vern had extended “Congratulations” to her, and Florence professed that the school-ma’am had “a vacuum in her head” regarding the reason for congratulations.
Florence concludes that the congratulations must be due to the recent parties she attended after “almost nothing in the months before”.
One can appreciate the wittiness of Florence and hope that she and Mr. Berryman remained friends and correspondents for a long time.
(The postcard was saved within an album – you can see the marks of the corner hinges on the full view of the face. Mr. Berryman seems to have been fond of this remembrance from Florence.)
