Postcards from Pennsylvania

- September 07, 2020

Collectors of American postcards, and especially World War I ephemera, may be interested in three more postcards in the collection of Vintage Merchants Tansley & Co, Maldon, Victoria, Australia. They also provided enough clues to discover their linked family history.

CARD No. 1

This has an indistinct coloured image of the Declaration of Independence, with the handwritten name Ollie Fischer on the side. It was posted on 28 July 1908 in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, addressed to a Miss Ollie Fischer, Amaranth, Fulton Co., Penn and reads as follows:

My own Dear Little Sister. I will send you a Postal for your Little Birthday which is the 28.^.I hope everybody is well at home. I am well at present and tell Amber I will write soon. Tell Gilbert to write how is you three Little Sisters of mine getting along [these?] nice days. Ollie can’t you and Jessie write Rachel a letter, try tell [Moris/Moses?] I got a letter from Mike he is well. I am going out to see him 30of August. Well Good Bye my dear Little Girl. From your Sis Rachel.

(The second name on the front of the postcard of "**n Seymour" does not appear to have any connection to the other people mentioned and may have been added later.)

CARD No. 2

The picture shows WW1 American servicemen (popularly known then as “Doughboys”) with a horse. The rhyme reads:

Don't think that I would be surprised

If I picked up a journal

And found you'd been promoted

To a Major or a Colonel

Again addressed to Ollie Fischer, Buck Valley, Fulton Co. PA, it was posted from Lee Branch, Petersburg, Virginia, on 5 March 1918. Unfortunately the name of the the sender is not clear.

Hello:-

Yes we all arrived O.K. but are some tired boys as the train was crowded, another train had pulled in besides ours, one about [every?] day so some say. Bye Bye.

[?] - G.V. Roy/Ray H.

CARD No. 3

This has an image of men training at Camp Gordon, Atlanta, Georgia, and is titled “Advancing by squads, Camp Gordon, Atlanta, GA”

The card was posted on 18 April 1918 and is addressed to Mr Calvin Beatty, Buck Valley, Pa. It reads:

Private Wm. R. Ritz, Battery B321, F.A. [Field Artillery] Camp Gordon, Atlanta GA.

Hello old scout how are you. I am all O.K. and getting Fat and sassy. I hope this find you all O.K. Write and give me the news. From your cousin William.

FINDINGS

Research via genealogical online sites soon established the addressee of Cards 1 and 2, to be Ollie Mildred Fischer (1901-1977). And the sender of Card 1 was her sister, Rachel Regina Fischer (1886-1964). Some of the names mentioned in that card matching their siblings.

Several family trees can be found showing the Fischer family who originally came from Germany and settled as farmers in Pennsylvania in the early 19th Century.

It was exciting to discover there are photographs online of many members of the Fischer family, including Rachel and Ollie and their husbands ... and Ollie's husband just happened to be Calvin Beatty (1891-1973) of Card No. 3!

(See familysearch.org links given below for more details.)

It took a bit more detective work to decipher the surname of the sender of Card No. 3 as it is obscured by the postal mark but it turned out to be William Raymond Ritz. His mother was Delilah Beatty prior to her marriage to William’s father, Daniel, who was born in Germany. William Ritz was born on 30 July 1893, died on 3 February 1971 in West Virginia.

Calvin and Ollie appear to have had three children. Ollie’s sister, Rachel Fischer married Elwood Clay Hendershot about a year after she sent the postcard. She would eventually have six children.

During World War I, William Ritz was sent with the other Doughboys to the front in Europe, and served at the Battle of Saint Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and emerged from both battles unscathed. He married Mina Hull and had three children

No link to Australia can be found as all these individuals appear to have lived, worked and died largely within rural communities of Pennsylvania and nearby States.

It is presumed a descendant sold the postcards online to a dealer and that is how they subsequently wound up in an auction lot in Australia.

Following is report on Ollie and Calvin's Golden Wedding in 1968 (source Newspapers.com)