Antique & Vintage Postcards

A fashionable young woman in a rose-pink gown cradles a basket of flowers against a luminous panorama of Erfurt's skyline — the twin Gothic spires of the Dom and Severikirche unmistakable on the hill above the old city — in this gorgeous chromolithograph "Gruss aus Erfurt" ("Greetings from Erfurt") card, postmarked May 24, 1901. The message crammed across the image is a gem of expatriate missionary life: the sender, writing to a "Bro. Frederick" in Munich, reports being in Erfurt for the 11th German Gymnastic Festival (Turnfest), laments that locals won't come to Bible class despite daily outreach ("attracting every day but unable to get the people to come to Bible Class"), and mentions having "three chairs for those who come." Sender was E.H. Reese, writing from Nord Strasse 53, Erfurt, Thüringen. Addressed to H.J. Frederick, Schlär Strasse 1, München, with a crisp Munich arrival cancel.