Mr. George Semple was in Denver, the boom town in the South Platte River Valley of central Colorado – just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver
George was relocating to the area, and was staying in the New Clifton Hotel.
(There is very little information readily available about the New Clifton Hotel – the hotel was listed in the Pullman Company Red Book and Hotel Directory of 1917.)
Soon after Christmas in 1908, George received an endearing postcard from his brother.
The brother, who signed the message with the initials, “S. S.” mailed the postcard from Utahville in Pennsylvania.
Utahville, now a populated place in Clearfield County of north-central Pennsylvania, was one of the oldest settlements in the area.
It was first settled by the family of a soldier in the French and Indian War who claimed a land grant in the “wilderness” for his war-time service.
During the mid-19th century, Utahville was connected to a spur of the Bellwood Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad – built to carry ore from nearby coal mines.
The Post Office in Utahville was closed in 1966.
The face of the postcard is an elaborately-colored arrangement of flowers adorning the printed message, “To My Dear Brother”.
The flowers are lightly-embossed, which makes the faint writing on the reverse more difficult to read.
Nevertheless, the design is a fine example of German printing in the “golden age” of postcards.
On the reverse, brother expresses a hope that George “had a merry Xmas and will have a happy new year.”
The family in is “all reasonable (sic) well but Iva”.
We do not learn more about Iva’s condition, but brother hopes that George is well, also.
Brother asks George, “When you are located, send us a postal and I will answer your letter.”
It seems that brother does not want to have his letter undelivered due to George’s temporary living arrangements.
One hopes that George found pleasant accommodations, that he sent a postal from his new address, that he received a letter from his brother, and that the brothers remained correspondents for many years.
