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Friday Slide Show: From a Wedding
21 June 2024
Imagine our surprise when we discovered a small cardboard box full of gift cards from a wedding 98 years ago. We felt a little like an archeologist who, digging down, discovers the shards of not one civilization but, digging a little deeper, two.
As one generation saves the memorabilia of an older one that passes, that's just what happens. Mom had saved what her mother had saved. And here we were doing the same thing.
We thought the quaint cards would be a charming way to wish all the June brides and their grooms smooth sailing. The rhyming verse, the fanciful drawings, the Roaring Twenties graphic design are of another era but the sentiments echo even now.
The Happy Couple. John and Mary in 1926.
Each of these cards is, of course, signed. In ink, probably by fountain pen but a dipped pen might have been used as well. It's how people texted 100 years ago.
You'll notice a pencil notation about the gift on each one, too. That would come in handy when the thank-you cards were being written. The pencil note was a practice our mother continued with her high school graduation cards, we noticed, when we came upon them.
But back to the wedding. We have the monochrome wedding picture, which we've reproduced here to flesh out the story.
Which began when John Garbarino and Mary Traverso were married at Saints Peter and Paul church on Oct. 10, 1926.
They had two children, Mom and her little brother Robert. And a few years later, they found themselves with nine grandchildren. And not long after that some great grandchildren.
They lived a long and happy life together until John passed away. But by then they had already celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary in 1976 surrounded by family and friends.
One of these ancient cards had hoped as much for them:
At the rainbow's end 'tis said and 'tis true
A pot of gold awaits for two
Who follow the path of happiness through
And may you be the two to find it!
