Objects of Our Affection- the hidden stories on old postcards.

It is always surprising to me what survives the passage of time…

Recently, I have been going through my own belongings accumulated over the last fifty or so years; slowly I have been sorting through possessions which spanned thirty years of having a family at home.

But how, I wonder, do we decide what to keep and what to part with?

Image of One cent stamps on postcards

In what must have been a desperate need by my maternal grandmother to keep what she thought of as precious but also intimately private from entering the public domain, she burnt almost all her family photographs. The cupboard in the oak sideboard of my grandmother’s house, full of papers and photographs, was a forbidden zone to me as a child. There was one exception; on one rare occasion my grandmother allowed me to “sort and tidy” the contents of that cupboard, an endeavor which I took great pride in, as it made me feel so grown up.

 There are, no doubt, many more gaps in our family history; if we were to measure that history by the family photographs that remain in circulation between us all we would discover the gaps that we ourselves had created- editing our family lives as we decide which photos to keep and which to throw out. What I have noticed though as I am sorting through my own personal belongings is not just how patchy the photographic record of my life is-bursts of photos taken in some years and then nothing at all in others, but also just how few letters and postcards I have kept over the years.

I remember that cupboard of my grandmother’s and the drawer to the right of the fireplace which brimmed over with envelopes; you had to push the papers down with one hand and push the drawer closed with the other before all the letters spilled out! There were definitely postcards in amongst those letters too; lots of them as I recall, though none have survived the passage of time.

 

image of old postcard of Canso harbour

 I do have a small collection of postcards though. But these postcards, with scenes of Canso and Guysborough are relics of other people’s lives. They were purchased by my family mainly through e-bay; no doubt having previously reached the public domain in auctions and estate sales, in exactly the way my own grandmother feared her own might be sifted and sorted through had she not first burnt them. My own interest was in the history of the Canso area, being a “come from away,” everything about the area intrigued and enchanted me. I loved looking at those pictures of Canso harbor, imagining it in the winter covered in ice or in the summer with the fishing fleet spread across the horizon. But now, it is the writing on the back of these postcards which intrigues me just as much.

 

image of old postcard of Hazell Hill, Nova Scotia

 

My all time favorite postcard though is a black and white photo of Hazel Hill, (the houses on Front St. for the Commercial Cable Company officers remain today as one of the most unchanged streetscapes in Nova Scotia).

 But it is what is written on the back of the postcard that makes it special to me. On the back of the postcard, “Ada” writes to Miss Louis Nicholas of Mahone Bay, and declares,
 

“I am having an elegant time.

Mr. A was here

to meet when I arrived, he

left yesterday for Banks

so its not quite as

pleasant for me. Hope

your all well.” 

This postcard charmed my own mother so much that we started using the phrases, “having an elegant time” or “so it’s not quite as pleasant for me,” when we wrote cards to each other!

We have often thought about Ada and wondered who she was. Who had Ada meant by “Mr. A?” Were they courting at the time this postcard was written? Was Ada writing to her sister or a close friend? And did Ada and Mr. A eventually marry or was “Mr. A” lost at sea as he set out on one of his treacherously dangerous fishing trips to the “Banks” ?