Miss Anna Mann lived in Washington Boro, the community along the Susquehanna River in south-central Pennsylvania.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Boro,_Pennsylvania
In earlier postcard stories, we met George W. Mann of Washington Boro; George sent a series of postcards to Blanche Copeland who he was married circa 1910.
I have not yet discovered if George and Anna are related.
In December of 1918, Miss Mann received a Christmas postcard from Myrtle.
Myrtle mailed the postcard from Lancaster, the city about 10 miles east of Washington Boro.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancaster,_Pennsylvania
The face of the postcard is a lovely, evocative drawing of a young woman walking with a dog in a wintry landscape.
The young woman is well-equipped for the season -she sports a lovely hat, is wearing stylish boots, and carries a large muff.
We cannot know if the woman is on an errand, or providing some exercise for the hound who shuffles along ahead of her.
Beneath the figures is the legend, “Wishing you a Merry Christmas”.
The postcard was published by the Gibson Art Company of Cincinnati and was identified as one of the “Gibson Lines”.
Here is an excerpt from a page on Artstor.org:
“Gibson was the nation’s third-largest greeting card manufacturing and sales operation and employed about 1,000 people.” ; Gibson Greetings was formed in 1895 as the Gibson Art Co., with headquarters in downtown Cincinnati. Expanding business lead to the ‘new’ world headquarters in Amberley Vilage, a half million sq ft. campus on 114 acres which opened in 1957. By 1960 the company was known as Gibson Greeting Cards, Inc., and changed again to Gibson Greetings, Inc. in 1983. After a series of business setbacks, the company was acquired by American Greetings in 1999.”
Alas, the charming bit of postcard art was done anonymously – I cannot discern an artist’s mark.
On the reverse, Myrtle writes, “Wishing you all a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year.”
Myrtle sends the postcard, “with love”.
One hopes that Anna and Myrtle, and all of God’s creatures, enjoyed a wonderful Christmas.
