Postcards to Clara Rice on Sutton Island 1909-1917

From collection Great Cranberry Island Historical Society Collection

Postcards to Clara Rice on Sutton Island 1909-1917

Postcards (1910-1917) addressed to Mr. and/or Mrs. Wilbert .A. Rice, Mrs. Clara Rice, Mrs. Caddie Rice. Correspondence is not remarkable, just brief notes inquiring about the weather, health, visits; birthdays (September and March) and many holiday greetings from family and friends on pretty, mostly seasonal and birthday postcards. A few are of practical matters. These are 1 cent postage stamps (until 1917) so the centuries old “a penny for your thoughts” expression comes to mind. About 100 postcards total; only 2 scanned. An April 15, 1910 Bar harbor Record newspaper article relates Clara was rescued from a boating accident off GCI. Clara Rice was postmistress on Sutton Island in the Cranberry Isles. She may have married a Fernald, then Charles Edward Bunker, and then wed Wilbert Augustus Rice in 1893. There are three houses in a row connected to Clara Rice including the donor's house on Sutton. There is also a collection of clipped 1 cent stamps in a 1919 envelope, and two stereoscopic cards (not scanned). [Investigation of genealogy of Clara Adeline Richardson Bunker Rice [1847-1923] see Lynne Birlem genealogy pdfs herein.]

Details

1909
Fair 
This collection of postcards travelled from Helen Fernald to Anne Namnoum to Kristin Howard (GCIHS donor). There is a handwritten index card with collection: “Old newspaper, post cards, and letters etc. found in left of the Barn in 1954. Of interest –“ No "letters or etc." in 2019 donation to GCIHS. Lynne Birlem's genealogy lists 10 children for Clara. Not sure this is correct yet (12/16/19). Newspaper clippings discarded - too brown and brittle.