The following card had the interesting curved front that opened, as well as the curved closure on the envelope - one of the fancier cards. The envelope was sealed with a 1934 TB stamp - I can remember my grandmother sealing her Christmas cards with TB stamps some 15 years later and they always had the year printed on them, and the red cross. This particular card is signed Uncle Joe, Aunt Clara, Joe and Clara Adelia. Uncle Joe was Joseph Benjamin Haden II, uncle of my father-in-law. Of course, the others were Uncle Joe's wife, son and daughter. Clara Adelia, now called simply Claire, is still living.
The next group of cards is just an assortment with horses and sleighs predominating. I particularly like the card with embossed gold trees and its matching envelope.
These following cards were all more like postcards - they were just lightwieght card stock that did not fold. Of the cards that still had envelopes, these required only
1 1/2₵ postage while the regular Christmas cards had 3₵ stamps. Notice one was a complimentary card from the local drug store - businesses obviously sent cards then, too.
The last card - the one signed Jessie Stevens is especially poignant. My husband was born in a room in her house in February of 1939; a room rented by my in-laws while they were in Ladonia for the winter. Miss Jessie never married, but she helped deliver that baby boy. My father-in-law's younger brother had borrowed his car for a date and brought it back with the gas tank empty; my father-in-law had to hoof it to fetch the doctor. Now the doctor, Dr. Sam Fry, was my mother-in-law's uncle and he was 73 years old - I suspect he didn't walk really fast. They arrived back at Miss Jessie's after the baby's arrival. Years later when my husband changed jobs, we had to write for his birth certificate [requirements were different back then - he had even joined the Army without having to produce a birth document] - the name on it was "Baby Boy Haden" - information supplied by Dr. Sam Fry. Of course I had to get him a T-shirt with his new name on it! Both his parents were still living and signed affidavits, so now there is an amended birth certificate that gives the baby's name properly as Robert Donald Haden - he passed away in 2004.
