Ofstedahl Postcards
A practice that seems to have faded is sending picture postcards to friends and family members while away from home. Norval and Carlene Ofstedahl must have had a plan with their young nephew John Laird to send a post card every time they were in a new State. Carl Ofstedahl sent John a post card at summer camp. The postcard at right is a family legend - sent in the 1950’s from Ireland to “Ofstedahls, Cotati, California, USA” - with that being enough to be successfully delivered. Here are a selection of post cards - and hopefully it will spur other family members to send more to add. Many had the stamps removed for stamp collection - which robs us of the postmark location and date.
Here is the photo side of the post card to “Ofstedahls” above.
The postcard above was actually a small folding book of scenes - a type of postcard common at the time - sent from Mrs. Edna Laird (I recognize her handwriting) to Carl Ofstedahl in July 1949. Cedar Point was in Ohio on Lake Erie, a vacation spot that the Laird family - who lived in downstate Illinois - visited. At that time Carl was in a tuberculosis sanitarium in Santa Rosa. Carl’s daughter Dorothy would have married Edna’s son Ralph three years before this card was sent. Below is a post card from Josephine Ofstedahl, signed “Grandma” to John Laird in January 1960. It mentions saying his to Jimmy and Tommy. It also mentions “your collection” which must mean that I was collecting post cards and that’s why Norval and Carlene sent them from a new place in this period. The post card image is significant, because John was born in Memorial Hospital in Santa Rosa.
The postcard below was from Josephine Ofstedahl, signed “Grandma”, to John Laird, dated July 1961 and postmarked from Santa Rosa. It was of a submarine launch at Mare Island in Vallejo, where the Lairds lived at the time. It was addressed to the YMCA Summer Camp in La Honda where John was a camper that summer. It also indicates that she was in the hospital and was going home.
The postcard below was from Carl Ofstedahl, signed “Gramps”, to John Laird, dated July 1961 and postmarked from Santa Rosa. It was also sent to the San Francisco YMCA Camp almost a week after the postcard from Josephine. He says she is getting better “very slowly” - unclear which health issue that this was.
The post card below was from “G and G” - Grandpa and Grandma - to John Laird from Indio, California, postmarked February 17, 1967. The postcard indicated the Grupps were coming. The Ofstedahls went to Desert Hot Springs for the winter some times. Carl’s brother Elmer died the week before. Carl passed away later this year.
The post card below was from “G and G” - Grandpa and Grandma Ofstedahl - to John Laird in a year that isn’t clear. The postcard was sent from Gull Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada - but states that they were in Alberta. It is postmarked August 24 but no year is listed. The post mark indicates “Gull Lake”, which is where Elmer Ofstedahl lived when he moved to Canada and enlisted in the Canadian Army for his World War I service.
A postcard of Rome from “Georgia” to Mrs. Carl Ofstedahl at P. O. Box 123, Cotati, California, dated July 20, 1958.
Postcards from Norval and Carlene Ofstedahl . . . .
Norval Ofstedahl, my uncle, married Carlene Hudson ca 1958 and their first child Kari was born in June 1961. Between that time, Norval worked for Western Electric and traveled the United States and the world in that job. I have a vague recollection as a child of them reciting the number of states they had been to. I was excited by the fact that they had even been to Greenland. According to Norval’s 1999 obituary, “he worked for Western Electric maintaining Nike missile sites around the world”. In a 1960 postcard above, Josephine Ofstedahl referred to John’s “postcard collection”. It must have been out of this that John got so many post cards from Norval and Carlene as they moved around the country and the world. In retrospect, that was remarkably kind and generous of them. Seventeen such postcards are posted below. The first postcard, just below, was dated January 26, 1960 and sent from Carlsbad, New Mexico - but appears to be written while they were in Texas.
The postcard below, was dated September 1959 and postmarked from Huntsville, Alabama - but is of the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson. It mentions them dirving along the Gulf of Mexico.
The postcard below if of the Tennessee State Capitol and was postmarked September 8, 1959 in South Pitts?, Tennessee. They write “Happened to be in Tennessee today”, and had been staing in a house trailer in Huntsville, Alabama.
The postcard below was postmarked in August 1959 in Madison, Connecticut - with images of the State Capitol and a boat. It mentions they are on the road going through Connectiuct and “haven’t been able to follow the fall games”.
“Having a Wonderful Trip”, from the Appomattox Court House in McLean, Virginia where the Civil War ended. It was postmarked August 1959 from Huntsville, Alabama.
The postcard below, of the Rhode Island State House at night in Providence Rhode Island, was postmarked in Centerdale, Rhode Island on August 28, 1959. They write that it is “awfully hot here” and that they would leave for Florida and Huntsville, Alabama the next day.
The postcard below is of the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond and was posted from Huntsville, Alabama on August 31, 1959. Still awfully hot and humid, and they saw tobacco plants.
The postcard below was from Richmond, Virginia, also, and was the White House of the Confederacy in Richmond - it seems to have been mailed from Huntsville, Alabama the same day as the previous post card.
The postcard below is of the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge and was postmarked in New Orleans in September 1959.
Norval and Carlene’s Time in Italy . . .
Norval worked in Italy as part of is job in the early 1960’s. The next postcards are from that time. The first postcard below is one of three from Milan. It is dated in May 27, 1960. It has an American postage stamp, and is postmarked air force service. They told me (Johnny) they visited an old caste.
The postcard below is dated June 25, 1960 and is from Rome. They are taking tours of Rome.
A postcard from Pisa below, dated April 17, 1960, “that tower does lean”.
A postcard from Verona, Italy postmarked Army Air Force Postal Service and dated May 23, 1960. Gladiators were at this “old arena” and was also the home of Romeo and Juliet.
This postcard from Venice, dated March 29, 1960 (which happened to be my tenth birthday), the note states that this is the bridge that Shakespeare mentions in the “Merchant of Venice”.
This postcard, to “Jimmy Laird” is dated May 27, 1960, and is on the same date as a postcard to “Johnny Laird” from Milan also - the first one in the foreign section above. They write about the castle and its entrance.
This is the third of three postcards from Milan, all on May 27, 1960, this one to Ralph and Dorothy Laird. The postcard photo if of the interior of the opera house.
The last of the seventeen cards - domestic and foreign - from Norval and Carlene, is from Heidelberg, Germany, and appears to be dated in March, 1960. Once again, it was of a castle.
