Happy Halloween from my husband's Wood family! This colorful holiday postcard was sent to hubby's uncle in Cleveland, Ohio, on October 28, 1913.
The sender was Aunt Rachel Ellen "Nellie" Wood Lewis Kirby (1864-1954). Nellie was an older sister of James Edgar Wood (1871-1939), my hubby's grandfather. James and Nellie were close and Nellie was very fond of his four boys.
During the early 1900s, Nellie sent postcards to her beloved Wood nephews for every conceivable occasion. The recipients really enjoyed hearing from this favorite aunt -- so much so that the Wood family kept these postcards for more than a century!
Nellie's Story
Nellie married her first husband, Walter Alfred Lewis Sr. (1860-1897), when she was 20 and he was 24. Unfortunately, he died at the age of 37, leaving Nellie with a son to raise alone. She moved to Detroit to find work. In Detroit she also met the man who would become her second husband, Arthur Kirby (1860-1939).
Not long afterward, Nellie and Arthur moved to Chicago...and eloped to the "Gretna Green" town of Crown Point, Indiana, in 1907, where they could be married and return home that same day to the Windy City. According to the 1910 US Census, he worked as a barber and she worked as a seamstress. In 1920, he was still a barber but she was running a nursery from home. In 1930, he continued working as a barber but she had no occupation.
The year 1939 was sad for Nellie. Her brother James (my husband's grandfather) died in January in Cleveland, Ohio, and then her husband Arthur in Chicago died in March. From then on, Nellie lived by herself in Chicago, but remained in touch with her Wood family back in Ohio until her death in 1954.
Remembering Nellie on Halloween with this postcard she sent to the Wood family 107 years ago today.
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