How Much To Mail A Letter

A Postcard From 1912 Returns to Brooklyn

Margot Owett was riffling through the day’s mail in her townhouse in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, one recent evening when she came upon a faded black-and-white postcard of a charming house with a wraparound porch.

“How lovely,” she thought.

She flipped it over. In the “address” box was her address, but someone else’s name. It carried only a 1-cent stamp. And it was postmarked August 1912.

“My jaw dropped,” Ms. Owett said.

Had the postcard just now arrived at 288 Warren Street for the first time, after being lost in the bowels of the United States Postal Service for 99 years? Who was Miss E.F. Iggulden, the intended recipient? And who was the mysterious Robert, whose only message was his signature, penciled in with flair, the “R” ending in a series of dramatic loops? Was he, as Ms. Owett’s mother speculated on Facebook, a suitor whose beloved married someone else, after she never heard from him?

City Room set out for answers.

First, we enlisted the help of the crackerjack New York Times researcher Alain Delaquérière, who found 1910 census records listing a 4-year-old Elizabeth Iggulden as one of three children living in one of three households at 288 Warren Street. (A 1920 census record listed her middle initial as F.)

That would have made her about 6 in 1912. So much for romance. Who was Robert, then? Her brother Charles, who would have been about 20 or 21 at the time, may have had the middle name Robert: Mr. Delaquérière uncovered a World War I draft card for a Charles Robert Iggulden of Brooklyn. It bore a signature not unlike postcard-Robert’s.

As for the place pictured on the postcard, the Holy Trinity Holiday House , in Brookhaven, on Long Island, Mr. Delaquérière found that it was used by the Church of the Holy Trinity in Brooklyn Heights as a vacation destination for mothers and children. A 20-year-old man may not have been welcomed as a guest there, so maybe Robert was not Charles Robert, but a child whom Elizabeth befriended.

But where had the postcard been for the past century?

It was postmarked in Brookhaven, on the afternoon Aug. 28, 1912. But just above the postmark is a hint that it may have been resold at a flea market: A penciled-in “5 —.” A postcard with the same picture and a 1913 postmark was recently available on eBay for $10.

Could someone have just slipped the postcard through Ms. Owett’s mail slot, obviating the postal system? Ms. Owett grilled her son Gideon, 17, who had taken in the mail that day. He assured her that it had been tucked in the middle of the pile, not rested on the top or placed at the bottom.

Obama fan selling his hand-written Obama letter to avoid eviction ...

Opening the handwritten letter from President Obama brought a glimmer of hope to her life as he promised her that things would get better for her and her family.

And despite the fact Destiny Mathis, from Hobart, Indiana, treasured the letter, more than two years later she has no choice but to sell it as she and her three children face eviction from their home.

The 26-year-old was an avid campaigner for Mr Obama in 2008, getting T-shirts made and encouraging people in her neighbourhood to vote.

Back then her life was tough but she had hope for her own future and the future of America.

She graduated top of her class in 2005 and was working as a surgical technician while also helping her mother, who was battling cancer at the time.

She said: ‘I campaigned for him hard. I got the shirts made, the Barack the Vote shirts made. We’ve done a lot.’

We initially felt badly for Destiny. Then we noticed something about the photo that came with her story – the one that showed the 26-year old with her three kids, including a baby and another one that’s still young enough to suck on a bottle.

Our questions for Destiny:

Did it ever occur to you to keep your knees together rather than cranking kids out on an assembly line?

If you graduated from school in 2005 and have had at least two kids since then, how much have you actually worked since you got out of school?

If you were unable to work because you were either pregnant or raising your children, have you been on welfare?

Where’s the father or fathers of your children? He or they seem to be conspicuously absent from this story and your personal finances.

And finally, Destiny, how’s that hopey changey thing working out for you?

Source: Daily Mail UK

Second, women believing lies and being used by men, in her case by the father(s) of her children as well as the father of fascist hopes and dreams, is nothing new, and not isolated to black women.

Hell, if you think about the whole process of childbirth, you realize that if they weren’t just a little naive the human race would die out within a generation!

As it is, she is just one of millions whom, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, “is still waiting for my free shit from Obama!”

Like or Dislike:

“Second, women believing lies and being used by men, in her case by the father(s) of her children as well as the father of fascist hopes and dreams, is nothing new, and not isolated to black women.

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