Thanks to Ryan Lowder, grandson of Ellen Harriet Martin Lowder, we have a fantastic memento!
When Elizabeth Weidner Martin remarried and went to California, she took her oldest daughter, Ellen Harriet Martin, and her youngest child, George Martin with her. One story is that Harriet had a spider bite that needed special care. Another is that her mom just needed a babysitter. Whatever the reason, “Harriet” went off to California and didn’t have the opportunity to know her father as well as the younger girls who stayed in Milford and were eventually raised by their father, harry Martin, and their grandmother, Ellen Varden Martin, most likely the person young “Harriet” was named after.
Fast forward a dozen years or so and Harriet is now an 18-year-old newlywed, still living in California. Sometime about Valentine’s Day in 1948, judging by the postmark, Harriet received a card in the mail—a Valentine from her father, Harry Martin. The card has a clever verse and is signed in pencil: “From your loving Father H. M.” It also, apparently contained a photo of her father.
Who would have thought Edward Harry would be a Valentine sender?
A thoughtful gesture, nonetheless this card tells a puzzling story. The postmark dates the sending as February 13, 1948, however, Harry Martin died in January 1947, a little more than a year before the card was sent. We know the postal service can be slow, but that seems a bit extreme!
Another detail to consider is that the card is addressed to “Miss Harriet Martin,” although by the time she received it she was Mrs. Harriet Lowder.
Did Harry really send the card? The hand that addressed the envelope appears to be the same that wrote the note inside; the handwriting also matches a signature of Harry’s from 1917. From this we gather that Harry did sign the card and address the envelope.
It appears that this Valentine had been written no later than January 1946, possibly sooner; perhaps in the bustle surrounding Harry’s death, it wasn’t mailed that year. Perhaps Ellen found it later and decided to send it off, a day before Valentine’s Day.
What is clear is that Harriet received a note from her deceased father expressing his love a year after he died. What a sweet, tender feeling that must have been!
(I’m not crying, you’re crying.)
