3rd November 1916 elsie to laura Florence savage

camp hill, Birmingham to small heath, birmingham

1 mile

the message

"Dear Laura

wishing you Many Happy Returns of the day

with love from all

Elsie"

the sender

There are no clues as to who Elsie is. The card has not travelled far but there is no Elsie in the immediate family and so maybe Elsie is a friend of the family.

the recipient

Laura Florence Savage (1902-1960) was 14 when she receives this card for her birthday. She was the daughter of Samuel Arthur Savage (1875-1960) and Emma Florence Stockton (1876-1965). In 1933 Laura married George Edward Barlow. George is difficult to tie down but I think his dates are probably (1905-1986) although it is possible that he was born in Ireland in 1895. What is known about him was that he was a commercial photographer and he outlived his wife and both his in-laws as they left him money in their wills having both outlived their daughter. Laura's father Samuel was a foreman in an iron foundry. One remarkable thing about the family is that he had 7 elder siblings who despite being born in a range of years from 1852-1867, were all christened in 1870. Something must have happened. And a remarkable thing about Laura's parents is that they lived in the same house in Small Heath, 134 Byron Road, from at least 1911 according to the census, until 1965 when Emma dies. That is living in the same house for at least 54 years. Amazing.

the Places

Camp Hill and Small Heath, Birmingham

what the card says to us

The card is a birthday card. But it looks creepy to our modern day eye. How old is the girl in the picture? The font used looks a bit gothic. The title of the card series is "Little Sweethearts. It looks creepy but in 1916 it probably was entirely innocent. The card was produced by Raphael Tuck & Sons which is a company with an interesting history, not least the destruction of many of their original pictures in a German bombing raid in 1940. (see www.tuckdb.org and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Tuck_%26_Sons). What is meant by "hand coloured carbonette" is not clear even in these entries although they do refer to "oilette" and "silverette".