Valentines

Several Valentines created by the Buzza-Cardozo Company of Hollywood, California, are now in the historical collections of the Follett House Museum. The Valentine above is from the “Heart to Heart” line of Buzza-Cardozo greeting cards, which were popular in the 1940s and 1950s. The Valentine pictured below is a Valentine's Day birthday card.

 

Another combination birthday card and Valentine is shaped like a book.

 

This Valentine features a three dimensional rose when opened. It was a Valentine from a husband to his wife.

              

The inside greeting reads: “Because you're such a darling so dear in every way.  Because I love you always, and especially today." 

The ordinary items in our daily lives can provide family history clues. We know that the recipient of these lovely cards was a female whose birthday coincided with Valentine’s Day, and that she valued the cards enough to keep them for several years.  To learn more about ephemeral items of our daily lives see the book Encyclopedia of Ephemera: A Guide to the Fragmentary Documents of Everyday life for the Collector, Curator, and Historian, by Maurice Rickards (Routledge, 2000), available for loan at the Sandusky Library.