A postcard to Mary Lou
Sometimes, postcard collections donated to WKU’s Special Collections Library have a specific theme. A handful of 10 from collector James H. Holland, for example, were mostly scribbled by merchants in Lexington, Winchester and Somerset during the 1880s to arrange for the delivery of whiskey, hemp seed or tobacco. But among them is one addressed anonymously to Miss Mary Lou Barker of Lexington and posted from Maysville in the early 1900s.
“A mystery solved,” its writer declares. “Coming in on the bus this morning, it was my good fortune to be seated by a sweet little girl of about two years of age. She soon made friends with me,” the card relates, until, growing sleepy, she “nestled her head against me and I loved her all the more.” Puzzled at the source of such sweetness, the writer soon found a simple answer. “The veil was lifted, the cloud vanished–the mystery was solved, for her name was Mary Lou.” Left to us is the small mystery of this turn-of-the-century token of affection, written by someone to a little girl named Mary Lou.
To learn more about our postcard collections, search for “postcards” in KenCat.