Floral Greetings from 1911: Mount Vernon Postcard

A single postcard can do a lot of work. This 1911 floral greeting from Mount Vernon, South Dakota is one of those pieces that feels small in your hand but opens a little window into everyday life over a century ago. Between the violets, the quiet scene, and the short note to Bertha, you get design, emotion, and routine communication all packed into one card. In this post, we’ll look at what’s on the front, what’s written on the back, and how this one card fits into a much bigger culture of handwritten connection.

A Floral Greeting from Mount Vernon, South Dakota

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This Mount Vernon, South Dakota postcard is tied to a very specific moment: it’s postmarked November 4, 1911. It was mailed out of Mount Vernon, and what you’re holding is basically a single snapshot of early 20th century life on ink and paper. On the front, you’ve got a floral greeting, and on the back it opens with a simple “Dear Bertha,” so we know it was meant for someone specific, someone the sender knew well enough to address by name.

That’s the frame: a 1911 postcard, mailed November 4 from Mount Vernon, South Dakota, carrying a personal message to Bertha. As a piece of vintage South Dakota ephemera, it’s small, but it pins down time, place, and relationship very clearly. When we talk about a Mount Vernon South Dakota postcard or a 1911 postcard, this is exactly the kind of object we mean: dated, postmarked, addressed, and just detailed enough to give us a glimpse into that early 1900s postcard world. If you like this kind of paper time capsule, it fits right in with other vintage postcards and related ephemera from the same era.

Design Details: Violets and a Tranquil Scene

On the front, the design does most of the talking. The violets are the main focus of the image, so this works both as a floral postcard and a violets postcard. They’re not just background decoration; they sit right alongside the printed message, so the flowers and the words feel like one thought.

Behind and around the violets is a calm scenic view described as a tranquil scene. The whole layout reads as a quiet, peaceful postcard rather than something busy. The violets and the soft landscape are very much in line with early 1900s postcard art, where you often see gentle nature scenes, floral motifs, and just enough open space for a short note.

A Heartfelt Message to Bertha

The handwritten message is short and to the point: “Dear Bertha, received your card and was glad to hear from you.” That’s it. No long story, no extra news, just a clear acknowledgment that Bertha had written and that it meant something.

In the context of this vintage postcard, that one line is doing the job of staying in touch within the limits of 1911 correspondence. The sender is basically saying, I got your card, I heard from you, and I’m glad you wrote. When we talk about personal greeting card history, this is the kind of small, specific wording that kept relationships going across distance, short, direct, and all about keeping that line of contact open.

Postcards as Bridges Across Time and Space

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This single postcard is part of a much larger story about how people used postcards in the early 20th century. It’s one tiny piece of vintage correspondence, but it hints at all the other cards that moved between friends and family the same way. Held in your hand, it becomes less about the cardstock itself and more about the way people once used paper and ink to stay connected across distance. It also fits neatly into the broader world of vintage print media that captured those everyday exchanges.

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Where to View This 1911 Postcard

If you want to see this exact 1911 Mount Vernon postcard up close, it’s available on stereoviewvault.com, shared “from the stereovault.com.” It’s part of a larger collection on the site, and I’ve linked the specific Mount Vernon postcard listing in the video description here: https://stereoviewvault.com/items/postcard-lgpq757wz3mnfci-mlgpq757 so you can view the vintage postcard online and look through all the details of the Stereoview Vault postcard directly on the Mount Vernon postcard listing page. From there, you can also wander into other categories like vintage photographs or browse the Stereoview Vault on eBay for more pieces of early 1900s correspondence and imagery.

Closing

For a single card sent off in 1911, this Mount Vernon postcard carries a lot: careful artwork, a quiet scenic view, and a short message that still feels personal all these years later. If you’d like to see every crease, color, and detail for yourself, you can check out the online listing and spend some time with the card up close. It’s a simple way to step into someone else’s mail from over a century ago.