Duffield/Sisson Postcards No. 35

This is the 35th in a series of postcards from 1908-1914. This one was mailed from Moorhead, Minnesota in 1910.

This collection was discovered last year in the Sierra Madre, California home of Warren Brown after his death. Warren’s mother, Edythe Grace Sisson (1897-1978), was the daughter of Edith Amy Duffield (1864-1926) and Charles Herman Sisson (1868-1927). Charles and Edith were married in Ottawa, Illinois in 1895. They remained there until the early 1920s when they moved west to Los Angeles, California. Their collection of memorabilia was passed down to Warren, my husband’s cousin.

This is the second postcard in the collection sent to Edith by her sister Mae.

Front Street Looking West, Moorhead, Minn.
(Copyrighted 1910 by W.O. Olson. 905)

Postmarked August 25, 1910 in Moorhead, Minn.

Addressed to:

Mrs Edith Sisson

Ottawa

Ill

Marcy St

Message:

Dear Edith.

We are in this town

for a min and it

is quite cold. The men

have their over coats 

on. Hope you are all

well. Sister Mae.

Marie Louise "Mae" Duffield (1862-1943) was the first born daughter of Robert Duffield (1833-1925) and Henriette Louise DeSusClades (1841-1887). She was named after her maternal grandmother, Marie Louise Callon (1815-?). Two and a half years after Mae's arrival, Edith was welcomed into the family. The sisters were young women when their mother passed in 1887 and had two younger sisters whose care fell to them. In 1898, their father was married to a woman the same age as Mae. I have to wonder how this new relationship was viewed by the girls. In 1900, Robert Duffield and his new wife Mary are living alone and his youngest daughter is in her sister Mae's household. This may be a clue that the sisters were not accepting of their father's new bride.

Mae and Herbert don't appear to have ever had children. In April of 1910, they are still in Ottawa to be counted by the census taker, but by 1920 they are living in Long Beach, Los Angeles County, California. I haven't found when they moved to CA and I don't have a clue why they were in Minnesota. Just one day earlier Mae had mailed a card to Edith from Illinois, so she was traveling somewhere and this was likely another stop along the way. Moorhead is on the western border of the state and a sister city to Fargo, North Dakota. It gets very cold there in the winter months, but this card was mailed in August. A quick check of historic averages shows a record low of 32 degrees in the month of August back in 1886. Even 40-50 degrees would be chilly in late summer. Perhaps the cool temps were what led them to the beach!