The Godmother

From the steamer trunk.*


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.

The lady with the fabulous hat is Emma Roecker. The little boy is her son, Norbert. The inscription says (I think): "Fröliche Ostern" — "Happy Easter," and she has dated it at Champaign, Illinois, March 25, 1910.

Things get a little more complicated on the other side.



Folks, I did my best to decipher this, with a reference sheet of Sütterlin characters and my pitifully small German vocabulary (and she mixes English and non-Sütterlin script in there too!). For the sake of my own sanity, I had to give up. Here's my transcription, with blanks in the place of words I just could not figure out.

Hello Tony
Kennst du uns? unser kleiner Norbert wird im July 5 Jahr das ist unser baby. [Do you recognize us? Our little Norbert will be 5 years old in July. That is our baby.]
______ ________ ________ alle.
your
W & E. R.

The "W" stands for William, Emma's husband. Per the 1920 Census, he was a church pastor. They lived in the city of Champaign. Aside from little Norbert, the couple had a nine-year-old daughter, Alpha. Around 1916 they had another son, William Jr. The 1920 Census records them in Chicago, with William serving as a church deacon.

The "Tony" in the salutation, of course, was Antonia (or Antonie; I find her name spelled different ways) Rossow.

Now, as to that scrawl at the bottom — "Mom's godmother" — I suspect "Mom" was Minnie Rossow Harms, if only because this postcard was in her steamer trunk. Emma wasn't old enough to be Antonia's godmother.

Here's another postcard (same source) of Emma, undated and unexplained.