july 26th 1905 amy to alice maria Elizabeth godfrey nee penn

Gloucester, Gloucestershire to stroud, gloucestershire

10 miles

the message

"Mrs Godfrey

I expect you are wondering why I have not written before. I am very sorry, but I have had so much to do lately it has quite taken up all my time. I am getting on all right as yet. We are having a rush this Sale. Hope you are all quite well in Stroud and also Miss Jones. Remember her to me won't you. We are going to Framilode for our outing Thursday. Not quite as far as Swansea is it.

I haven't any more space so must conclude with

love from Amy"

the sender

There are no clues to identify Amy. Presumably, like Alice the recipient she is involved in the retail trade because they have a Sale and it is Summer. Maybe she worked with Alice previously or lived with her. The Miss Jones referred to was Mary Jones the housekeeper at the address in Stroud that Alice was at in the 1901 census.

the recipient

For a detailed description of the history of Alice Maria Elizabeth Godfrey nee Penn and an exploration of some of the mysteries surrounding her and her family go to a previous card received by her earlier in 1905 here

the places

Gloucester, Gloucestershire

Stroud, Gloucestershire

Framilode, Gloucestershire

what the card says to us

The picture is of a detail of a memorial in Gloucester Cathedral and despite being local does not appear to be relevant.

There is talk in the message about a Sale which is presumably a Summer Sale in a retail business. As Alice is in the drapery business then probably Amy is too.

At some point there has been an outing to Swansea but it is not clear who went, Alice, Amy or both or neither. Perhaps it was a common 1905 saying. However there is definitely going to be an outing for Amy to Framilode which is a nearby village on the banks of the river Severn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framilode). There does not seem to be any outstanding features that warrant a visit except perhaps the view.

An interesting feature of this message is that is contains "quite" three times. Was that a common writing tick of 1905? i.e. inserting superfluous "quite"s.

Also, the writer, Amy, wastes a lot of space writing about how she is running out of space. She should have been more efficient and she should certainly not have written across the heavy black print on the card which made it very difficult to read in 1905 as well as the present day.