Erin Forever

Happy St. Patrick's Day.  In honor, I present a postcard I found among those I bought at an estate sale last Fall.  I previously profiled the Christmas portion of the cards here.

This is the only St. Patrick's Day postcard I've ever come across, given from one sister to another on March 17th, 1909, 103 years ago.  It was apparently also the receiving sister's eighteenth birthday making her actual day of birth March 17th, 1891.

Each leaf of the shamrock has been annotated with "six years" for a total of 18 years.  The text in the pipe reads, "CHEER UP.  eighteen years ago you where (sic) the cause of great happiness to your mother do you remember anything about this."

On the back, "St. Louis MO March 17th 09.  For my Irish sister."  I'm unsure of the initials.  OOG?  ODG?

The card was made by the Ullman Manufacturing Company of New York.  Not much information can be found on the company on the internet, although what little I did find suggests they operated from around 1888 to 1946 and were run be brothers Nathan, Max, Louis and Isidor Ullman.  Their peak years were between 1900 and 1915 where this postcard falls in.

Happy 121st Birthday Irish sister, and Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone else.