One of the earliest postcards in the collection was written in 1880 by a man named Haseltine to George Henry Stewart at Hyer's Corners. Hyer's Corners was so named because a hotel owned by a man named Hyer once stood at the crossroad just south of the Stewart farm.

Bird Island was a town in southern Minnesota - about 350 miles northwest of Hyer's Corners - named for a nearby tree-covered island in a marshy area that was once the roost of flocks of birds. Minnesota had become a state just 22 years earlier and a brief war with the Dakota Indians just 18 years earlier had ended with the execution of 38 Indians, the largest mass execution ever carried out in the United States.

Hazeltine was evidently a former Stewart neighbor who had moved to Minnesota, apparently to work in the lead mines. The sod house refers to one of the homes built by the first wave of settlers in the 1850s when Minnesota was still a territory.

Bird Island, Renville County, Minn. July 20, 1880

Friend Stewart,

It has been quite a while since I wrote you, so thought I would let you know that I was still in the land of the living.

Well I am today viewing one of Minn’s finest prairies and it is nice to look at, out where does the wood come from, as far as you can see it is nothing but bare prairie.

I saw a regular sod house today from the first time, and they are queer looking things.

Where is the address of Lathrop’s folks?

Respects to all and write me at Glencoe, Me Lead Co., Minn.

Yours, F Haseltine

Lathrop was George Henry's brother.



This postcard, written to Mary Stewart, George Henry's wife, by Preston, son of Mary's sister, Josie. Josie lived in Madison. Postcards were used for casual communication before the advent of the telephone.


This is a note to Mary from her sister Josie in Madison. The fair may have been the Wisconsin State Fair, whose location moved over the years before settling at its current site in a suburb of Milwaukee.


By 1906, Albert Henry had married and moved off his father's farm. The family split their time between a farm in Lodi and a house in Madison.


There are two postcards written on Jan. 5, 1907, from Stoughton, a town about 15 miles southeast of Madison. Beryl, Morris' older sister, was staying with friends or relatives there.


It's not clear whether Beryl was staying in Stoughton for fun or because her mother, Miriam, was absent and ill, as she often was.

Marian was in Sioux City, South Dakota, that summer recovering from an unknown illness. Sioux City was more than 400 miles away and a long way to travel to recover from anything but a serious affliction.

She wrote to Morris on Aug. 7, 1907, addressing the letter simply “Morris B. Stewart, Dane Station, Wisconsin. RFD 87.” The address suggests that Morris was staying at his grandfather's farm.

The stationery bears the imprint of a raised fist emanating rays. The envelope is addressed in ink but the letter is written in pencil.

Dear Son Morris,

I wrote to your father yesterday and addressed the letter to Madison as he requested me to.

I am so sorry you strained your stomach coming down that rope and I have thought of you so often and wonder how you are now.

Morris if you are well again, try to eat of all the different kinds of food there is on the table for you will be so much healthier and have more endurance as you grow older.

You must have your hair cut if you have not already done so and go to Lodi and have your teeth filled before school commences. You can phone to the dentist and make an appointment or ask your father to phone for you. Write to me soon and tell me if you are well and happy.

I am regaining my health slowly but surely. I am doctoring with a lady Osteopath doctor and Aunt Helen does all she can to have me recover.

I received a letter from Aunt Edna this morning and one from Beryl Monday.

Now you must write to me soon. I will enclose paper and envelope and you can borrow a lead pencil.

My address is

712 West Eighth Street
Sioux Falls
South
Dakota

P.S. Morris, you must write to Beryl, too.

Osteopathy was still a new branch of medicine – the first school of osteopathy had opened in Kirksville, Missouri, just 15 years earlier. Marian’s illness was, perhaps, an early bout of the depression that was eventually to claim her life.


In a card sent later in August to Morris in Madison, Beryl, then in Lodi, mentions her mother's illness and asks Morris if he has heard from her.


Miriam wrote Morris in mid-September to say she would soon be coming home.