I love this postcard from Alice Leighton (my great-grandmother) to her mother, Louisa Spalding (my great-great-grandmother). Alice had recently given birth to her first child, Mattie Louise, on January 5, 1906.
She had married her cousin Mark Leighton the prior September out of necessity. By this time, her mother had married her second husband, Fred Spalding, and was living in Brooklyn, New York.
The picture is captioned:
After the Theatre, Riverton Park
Greetings from Portland, Maine
Her note across the top reads:
“With Love from Daughtra (sic) Alice. You will get baby’s pictures this week coming.”
It is postmarked in Portland on May 5, 1906, so her baby was 5 months old, having been born on January 5th. It was again postmarked in Brooklyn on January 15th.
I can only imagine Alice’s feelings as she lived through a very difficult time. She would not stay married to Mark very long, and would remarry in 1909, to a Norwegian immigrant named Lawrence Olsen, and have seven more children.
Louisa would eventually marry a third time, and is buried with Alice and her Olsen family in Forest City Cemetery in South Portland, Maine.
