A Pretty Vintage Find...

So, here's a personal thing about me - lately, I've enjoyed visiting antique stores and other places that sell vintage jewelry and clothes. I've always been a contemporary person as it came to style, etc., but something about the 1970s and before is just calling me. I'm waiting a few more weeks before buying the clothes since I've been working out, but I've been falling all over myself with picking up jewelry and postcards.

Last weekend at Sugarfoot Antiques & Shabby Chic in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, I came across this find! A postcard with the most intriguing picture and then...check out the note on the back! (Click on the photos to get a better close up).

With the caption of "The Morning After," it's no surprise the picture is of a gentleman the day after having one too many. I hope he had a fun evening, at least!

But the even more curious part is the message on the back. It's written to a young woman in 1908, and it reads:

Dear Mab:
We are very much shocked to hear of the dissapations in which you have been indulging. Hope that as you are young you will outgrow.
Sincerely Yours,
R.H. & A. W.

I think dissapations may have been misspelled and it should have been "dissipations" which would mean wastefulness. I can only assume, based on the picture, and the message to the recipient hopefully outgrowing these youthful actions, meant that Mabel was perhaps participating in too many parties that were deemed a waste of her time?

Nowadays, a young woman having a couple of drinks and partying even a few nights a week doesn't seem to be a big deal. But in 1908? This would have been something delectably scandalous and I can't imagine what might have been worse: Being the subject of rumors and gossip, or getting a postcard in the mail for all to see that even your own family or friends from far away have heard about it!

And because I'm an Ancestry.com fan and have a membership there, I found that Mabel probably would have been approximately seventeen-years-old, and I then ended up tracking down a member whose cousin was the grand-niece of Mabel Zieske's husband! How cool is that? They now have the pictures of the postcard that I emailed over to them. Isn't it incredible that 103 years later, a simple postcard ended up in Florida from Minnesota, and the purchaser of the card (me) was able to connect with a relative of the postcard's recipient? Not to mention, I want to know more about Mabel!

I dig it.

So how about you? Have you had any vintage mysteries that you can share?

Happy Finding,
Coffee and a Book Chick