A Festival of Postcards

Here's my submission for the Blog Carnival: A Festival of Postcards.




This is one of my favorite post cards. This is a "Happy New Year" card from Denmark. The coins are embossed with gold.

We found this in a trunk in my grandmother, Bessie Mabel Mathena Johnson's, basement when she died 12 Aug 1976. The trunk held the belongings of Alfred Amfield Johnson's first wife, Minnie (Wilhelmina Christina) Rose. Alfred and Minnie were married on 2 Feb 1912 and Minnie died 3 June 1912.

This post card, and the translation from Danish, led me to identify Minnie's family and filled in some of the questions about Minnie. Until we found the trunk, we did not know that Grandpa Johnson had been married before.

Why?

It just never came up.

The Famous Easter Bunny Cake

It was an annual tradition with Grandma and Grandpa Johnson (Alfred Armfield Johnson and Bessie Mabel Mathena)-- the Easter bunny cake. White 7-minute frosting sprinkled with coconut. Under the frosting was one layer of a white cake, cut in half and stood up on the cut side. Jelly bean eggs scattered around the tin-foil-covered-cardboard-box base. Face made out of more jelly beans and ears cut from some heavy paper and painted white with pink in the middle.

Here's a picture, taken in 1961 in front of our house at 1913 George Street in Sioux City, Iowa. The dress was one of my favorites. It had different shades of orange and red-orange and orange sherbet.


This photo was taken in front of our house at 2127 West Fifth Street in Sioux City, Iowa. Judging by the brown "corral" fence in front of the house on which my brother Steve is perched, I am guessing that this was somewhere around 1963, give or take a year. That's Grandma and Grandpa Johnson (Bessie and A.A. Johnson).

We had bunny cakes every year. I wonder where photos for the other 16 or so years are?