Early in the twentieth century, long before Twitter, people sent snippets of news back and forth on penny postcards, sometimes transferring their own photos onto the front. In his book, Penny Postcards and Prairie Flowers, Philip Burgess has collected the postcards exchanged between his homesteading grandmother and great-aunt in Montana and their Norwegian immigrant family in Minnesota.
"Would like to go to town today but I have such headache and then when it blows so it gets worse still."
"Just had a dandy rain this noon and we need it bad the grain was all white the grass looks as it does in the fall."
"Knut and I were along. The love powder was all O.K. But it seems risky to give it to so many. He might get a whole string [of women] after him."
(Broadcast: Reflections West, 9/2/14 & 9/3/14)
