july 12th 1905 unknown to joan gallettie

middlesbrough, yorkshire

0 miles

the message

"This is all right"

the sender

There are no clues as to the identity of the sender.

the recipient

Joan Gallettie (1879-1951) was the daughter of Edmund Jennet Gallettie (1850-1931) and Elizabeth Anderson (1850-1919). Both Edmund and Elizabeth were both born in Scotland. Joan was their eldest child and was born in Middlesborough. There is some confusion over the surname because the birth records for Joan and her siblings are in the name of Gallettia. Later records are Gallettie. Whether this was a deliberate change or a slip of the pen by the registrar is not clear. Edmund was originally a hairdresser and subsequently a medical herbalist. One would expect that a name like Gallettie or Gallettia or a number of other variations might suggest a continental European origin, but Edmund's father was born in Wales.

In 1901, Joan was working as a clerk. In 1906 she married Alfred Hockney Ranson (1871-1932) who worked for the Post Office as a telegraphist. He served in WWI.

See also this card which clearly is addressed to Miss Gallettia

the tree

the places

Middlesbrough, Yorkshire

what the card says to us

The card is from a series called Illustrated Songs. This one is "Comin' Thro' The Rye" by Robbie Burns (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comin%27_Thro%27_the_Rye).

It is best left to the imagination as to what the combination of the picture, the lyrics and the message would have meant to Joan in 1904. It is also fair to assume that she knew the sender.

"all right" is used instead of "alright". When did "alright become a word?