Generations Of Germans: I Just Gave Myself a Dope Slap

Sunday, April 3, 2011

I Just Gave Myself a Dope Slap

Great Grandma, Emma Bertha Anna Sell, was born in Pocatello, Idaho in 1885, but she was baptized in the basilica at Altenkrempe, Neustadt-in-Holstein, Schleswig-Holstein on September 4, 1892. (See my previous post, March 9th "Was Sagt Das?...")

I found a copy of a postcard of the church that my Great Great Grandma, Bertha Friederike Jacobine (Sick) Sell, had addressed to a neighbor in Idaho. She told the neighbor that this was the church where the children were baptized. How nice, I thought. I even have a picture of the church where Great Grandma was baptized, along with a pleasant little note from Great Great Grandma to the neighbor.

But in looking at this postcard, I noticed a date on the front of the postcard - 1907. Emma returned to the States with her mother and brother in November 1892. I started to doubt everything I thought I knew.

I turned the copy over and there is no postal service cancellation showing the date it was mailed. I couldn't reconcile the date of the baptism with the date printed on the front of the postcard...until I did another check of the shipping records and found Emma's mom returning to the States, again, on December 2, 1907! So, she bought the postcard on a different trip. No problem; I get that. But no postmark? That was still a mystery.

Here comes the dope slap. How could I have a copy of a postcard mailed to my great great grandma's neighbor? She obviously never mailed it! That's how it remained in our family's collection.