This envelope was described in the Ebay listing as pertaining to Merrillville because of the postmark. The listing included pictures. But not until I had received the envelope and looked more closely at the postmark did I realize that both the seller and I had misread it: it's not Merrillville; it's Henryville. But still, this is a nice example of mourning stationery — black-bordered paper and envelopes used by a bereaved person.[1]
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Unfortunately, only the envelope was available, not the letter it contained.
Mrs. Elizabeth Bottorff was herself bereaved, as her husband, Cornelius, had been killed in a workplace accident the previous year. But mourning stationery was used by a person in mourning, rather than in writing to that person (unless the writer was also in mourning).
By coincidence, Elizabeth (who often went by Eliza) and Cornelius ("Corney") had a connection to Lake County. The newspaper report of his death mentioned that he had only recently come down from Hammond, where he had been employed:
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Jeffersonville Evening News, 2 July 1920.
The article got the widow's name wrong; also, Corney left two children, Warren (age 14 in the 1920 Census) and Floyd (age 5).
Evidently the Bottorffs had spent some time in Lake County: we also find the family here ten years previously, in the 1910 Census of North Township:
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Image from Ancestry.com.
Here is the back of the envelope, again with black borders:
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Under the flap is the imprint of the manufacturer, the W.K. Stewart Co. of Louisville, Kentucky …
… which was a lot closer to Henryville than we are.
Henryville is a small town 'way down in southern Indiana along I-65. If you ever are passing through, you can take a walking tour.
Eliza and Cornelius are buried in Silver Creek Cemetery.
There! — that concludes two afternoons spent researching and writing about something that has nothing to do with anything relative to this blog. Now I am going to crawl back in my hole and not come out again until I learn to read Ebay listings properly.
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[1] For further reading about, and images of, mourning stationery, you may wish to go here.
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