The chocolates said they wanted to know who gave my parents the metal tray shown in yesterday’s picture. (I had mentioned it was a wedding gift.) After we looked it up in Mom’s Bride’s Book in the list of gifts received, and told them it was given by Louise Carstensen and I didn’t know who she was, they decided it was boring. My own interest was piqued; Mom and Dad were married in April of 1950, so I looked Louise up in the 1950 census. I found her in Belleville, Kansas where Mom worked for a few years on the local newspaper after graduating from Kansas State College (later University.) Louise had several lodgers, so I suspect that was where Mom lived during her time there. More research needed.
I agreed with the chocolates that the pages with gift list were exceedingly boring, so we found these pages with congratulatory telegrams. We liked the colorful flower illustrations at the tops of the messages. The one on the right was signed “The five Voelkers of Pittsfield.” I didn’t know who they were either, but I thought it would be fun for the five chocolates to line up right there…I should know better. Four chocolates lined up, but the fifth one had discovered the photo album I had gotten out at the same time. Cute little tyke, wasn’t I? Just learning to crawl.
FYI, In the 1950 census I found the Voelkers in Pittsfield, Illinois. Carl and Mildred and their three young children. Yep! Five Voelkers! A wedding write up in the Manhattan Mercury from 1942 for Carl and Mildren lists my dad as best man. I LOVE old newspapers! And the Royal Purple yearbooks from K-State show Carl as a member of Phi Kappa, the Catholic fraternity that my dad and Uncle Don both belonged to. Man! I can go down such a rabbit hole on stuff like that!
