Lutka's Greeting

A lot of writing on a card should be a good thing, right? The more words, the more information—at least, that's what I hoped when I chose the old photos I wished to rescue from the obscurity of a northern California antique shop's back shelves.

When the words are written in a language I can't read, though, that theory doesn't always produce the hoped for result of being able to send the little treasure home to family—especially eighty to one hundred years after the fact.

As it turns out, on the reverse of the photo postcard I shared yesterday, the only word which might be of any help turns out to be a solitary given name: Lutka.

I can't even begin to transcribe the writing, as I have no idea what would constitute gibberish in Polish, and what would be the correct rendering of an entirely different style of handwriting.

Whatever the card turns out to be communicating, my guess is that it was concerning the details of the trip to Ciecherinek, Poland. As the pre-printed words on the postcard's reverse—"Correspondance" and "Adresse"—are in French, it would be tempting to think the photograph was intended for friends or family back in France. We have to remember, though, that in previous eras, French was considered an international language—especially for diplomacy—and thus would not indicate only one country in which it could have been purchased.

Here's hoping we can learn a little more about Lutka, even if we won't be able to send her photo home to family.