Sunday, June 25, 2017

More Swarthmore: Old envelope mailed to my great-grandmother


Here's an old envelope (now empty) that was mailed to my great-grandmother from Austria. This is when she and my great-grandfather were living in Swarthmore1, before they moved to the newly built house on Oak Crest Lane in the early 1950s.

I cannot tell the date from the postmark. But the REPUBLIK OSTERREICH Austrian stamp, which has a value of 1 Austrian Schilling, was issued in August 1946, as part of the "scenic 1945 issue of Austria."


There is some writing on the back of the envelope, presumably a return address in Austria, but I can't get much of a good lead from it. I'm not sure who the family knew in Europe at that time, and with Mom gone, this might have entered the realm of eternal mystery...


Footnote
1. SWARTH-more and SWATH-more are both acceptable pronunciations of Swarthmore. I think I actually fluctuate between the two, depending on how quickly or precisely I'm trying to speak.

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