Postcard Talk Windows to the Past Minnesota Early 1900s

Postcard Talk: Windows to the Past

Minnesota Early 1900s

Produced by Mary Katherine May of QualityMusicandBooks.com

for The House United

complete credits at TheHouseUnited.blogspot.com

EMIL NELVING ELMORE MINN Will He Find His Uncle Emil?

Postcard from Emil Nelving to Emil Oldenburg
Elmore, Minnesota to Waterloo, Iowa
Postmark December 9, 1910

Postmark: Dec 9 1910
Elmore Minn.

Addressee: Mr. Emil Oldenburg
Waterloo, Iowa

Dear Uncle,

I am going to Hampen Ia this weak and I thot I would come and see you I coming from Hampen Monday so if you got to come to met me I would be very glad because I dont no if I can find you.

Emil Nelving

We must assume that Emil Nelving was actually going to Hampton, Iowa, to see his Uncle Emil Oldenburg because there is no Hampen, Hampden, or Hampdon.  Even then, though Emil didn't know exactly where his namesake uncle lived, there was a greater problem since the postal service needed to find Uncle Emil also because the addres was incomplete.  All that can be concluded is that Nephew Emil knew that Uncle Emil lived in the vicinity of Waterloo, Iowa.

The estimated time to drive the 154.4 miles in 2012 from Elmore to Waterloo is just under three hours. I wonder how long it took in 1910.  There was train service from Omaha, Nebraska to Elmore, where the train turned around and went back to Omaha.  If this service existed in 1910, and Waterloo was been on the train route or nearby, then Nephew Emil may have used this mode of travel.

Let us hope that the two eventually found each other.  If I found Iowa jokes funny, I might write the last sentences as follows. let us hope that the two eventually found each other somewhere among the Iowa cornstalks. Ya, shure!

The town of Elmore is on the border of Minnesota going into Iowa.  The most current population census reports that just under 700 souls occupy this space in Faribault County.  First named Dobson, it is thought that the name was changed to honor one Judge A.E. Elmore, though there is no documentation that the Honorable Elmore ever visited the town that honored him.  There is a brief, interesting history of Elmore written by Kathy Gill by CLICKING HERE.

Real Photo Postcard of Unidentified Home

Unfortunately for me, this real photo postcard had substantial soil on the photograph side, which though for the most part successfully removed, in the process I also damaged the image.  The house and yard may have belong to the Nelving family, but without a family member identifying its ownership we will never know.

Prepared by Mary Katherine May of QualityMusicandBooks.com.

The Gospel Bells Are Ringing Round Die Cut Inspirational Card Samuel Wesley Martin

The Gospel Bells Are Ringing

 On this post I leave the postcard for a moment and offer instead an interesting round die cut card, 3-5/8 inches in diameter, with lovely artwork in pastels and the title of the hymn on one side, The Gospel Bells Are Ringing, and other the other the first stanza and refrain with brief publication information.  There is no date.

You will notice I used the word "stanza."  What is normally called a verse, is actually correctly named a stanza.  A verse is technically only one line of poetry.  In any case, This small piece of ephemera is fun, cute, and quite lovely.

On one side is pictorial artwork colored with pastels, of bells and apple blossoms on a blue background. The opposite side is the first stanza and refrain of he hymn by Samuel Wesley Martin, The Gospel Bells Are Ringing. Published by G. and W. Co., N. Y. C., Litho. in U.S.A.

The first appearance of this hymn in publication that I found was in 1892 (copyright 1891) in The Canadian Hymnal. Samuel Wesley Martin (1839-1926) was a composer and arranger of sacred music, that he used in his position of organist at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago, Illinois from 1896 to 1912. Mr. Martin came in 1894 from his native country of England with his wife, two daughters and two sons.

It is reported that in 1899 at the dedication of a new organ Mr. Martin was ill, and his talented 12-year-old son, Reginald Martin, played in his stead. Aurelia Senn, donated the $6,000 for the Kimball Company organ in 1897. It was the third organ installed by this church. Reginald soon after was employed as organist at Church of the Ascension in Chicago.

CLICK HERE to go to The Gospel Bells Are Ringing at hymntime.com, where you can hear an MP3 recording, see the complete hymn text of all four stanzas, and also download the sheet music for this hymn in Adobe PDF format.

This information was prepared by Mary Katherine May of QualityMusicandBooks.com.