November 30th 1906 Ian to Barbara Roberts

Ruabon, Wrexham to Tower Hill, Ruabon, Wrexham

3 miles

the message

"My dear Babs

I am staying in de house tonight do you not think it makes a good boy. I will drop you a line tonight. Ta Ta for de present.

Best love

La Ian"

the sender

There are no clues as to who Ian was.

the recipient

The recipient was Barbara Roberts (1890-?). She was 16 when she was sent the card. She was the daughter of Joseph Roberts (1859-?) and Sarah Ellen Peake (1858-?). She had three siblings Thomas W (1185-?), Richard H (1887-?), and Llewyllyn (1892-1924). Barbara's father and brothers worked at a brickworks, there being several in the area around this time. Barbara is present with the family in the 1901 census, but by 1911 she is gone. It has not been possible to find out if she has died, married or just left. The whole family has proved difficult to trace. Unusually for this time, although Joseph was born in Llangollen, not far from Ruabon, his wife, Sarah, was born in Grindley Brook in Shropshire and even more unusually, the oldest son, Thomas was born in Barrow-In-Furness. Obviously the family travelled and perhaps that is why it is difficult to track them after 1911.

the places

Tower Hill, Ruabon

what the card says to us

This card is interesting for a number of reasons. The picture is of Miss Ethel Oliver who was a British stage and silent movie actress in the 1900s-1920s. This is one of two postcards sent to Barbara Roberts featuring "celebrities" of the time. Ethel Oliver cannot have been that big a star because she has no Wikipedia entry, although there are picture on Google Images. And she had her own postcard published by Philco of a picture taken at the Dover Street Studios which was famous for theatrical publicity shots.

For the other, featuring Miss Edna May go to

The card is written in a kind of patois with the use of "de" instead of "the" and the signature of "La Ian". Was this a common way of writing in 1906? Was it a young person's thing?

But the most intriguing thing about the card is that someone, maybe Barbara, maybe La Ian has handwritten something beneath the picture. It is quite faint and appears to say "One Glove Lost". It feels like a line from a song or a play or the title of a show. Was this something that Ethel Oliver appeared in or was famous for? A mystery indeed.

And if you look closely, Ethel has a cigarette in her left hand and possibly a packet in her right.