Another Treasure: “Brought a Girl Home to Mother”

My last post contained some pictures I found as “treasures” from my cleaning projects. This post is about another treasure—a postcard my husband sent his great-aunt after our first trip together to Missouri, my first trip ever to Missouri.

Postcard purchased at Fort Osage in June 1977

I’ve written about this visit before, the first time I met my future in-laws—in early June 1977, almost exactly forty years ago. My not-yet-declared fiancé and I traveled to Fort Osage and bought gooseberries, then my not-yet-mother-in-law and I made gooseberry pie. Soon-to-be-fiancé chopped up a stump in the backyard for his parents—that picture I have tucked away in an album.

After chopping the stump

I always assumed the visit went well enough, since we did later get engaged and were married over Thanksgiving year of that weekend—forty years ago this November. But until his great-aunt returned this postcard to us, I didn’t really know.

Shortly after the visit ended, future hubby wrote:

I never used the ax, just posed with it

“Brought a girl home to Mother this trip—one I’d like to keep. She seems agreeable (the girl, that is, though I think Mother too approves.) But I’m old enough not to hold my breath. I’ll believe it when and if the deed is done. . . .”

(I assume by “the deed” he meant getting married; I haven’t asked him for clarification.)

I know I read the postcard when his aunt gave it to us, but then I stashed it in my cupboard. Until I cleaned that cupboard earlier this year, it might as well have been lost. I’m glad I found this treasure.

What treasures from your courtship do you have?

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