The goal of preserving and digitizing this postcard collection is to provide access to the historical and genealogical information it contains. Some of the content in the collection may reflect outdated, biased or offensive views or opinions.

This set of postcards was collected by Edward R. Woods and Roxanna O. Hostetler over 12 years, during the so-called “Golden Age” of postal cards. Ed and Roxie married on 24 June 1909, in LaGrange County, Indiana. During their courtship and for many years after they married, Ed an Roxie collected postcards, during the so-called “Golden Age” of postal cards.

This collection was used to solve the mystery of how Ed and Roxie met. They grew up one hundred miles from each other — Roxie in LaGrange, Indiana, and Ed in Dutton, Michigan — but both received cards postmarked Alto, Michigan. Ed and Roxie’s lives intersected in the town of Bowne, where Ed was a school teacher at the Logan School in Bowne from 1904 to 1907. Florence Stahl, Roxie’s cousin, was one of Ed’s students.

Many of the cards were sent by Ed to Roxie, or vice versa , but Ed and Roxie’s large circle of friends and family are also  represented in these cards. There is a wealth of historical and genealogical information contained in them that may be of interest to other researchers.

Some notes about the postcards:

• Each one has been transcribed so that the contents are searchable.
• All are grouped by postmark, if known.
• Anyone mentioned in the cards has been tagged using their full name, so that cards for any individual can be viewed together.
• Married women are tagged by their original surnames.

If you have information about the people who wrote cards or were mentioned in them, I would be very glad to hear from you. I can be reached at genealogy @ oldwillow.com.