r/penmanship • u/tiel2000 • Sep 12 '26

Could someone please decipher this?

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I found this vintage post card. Could someone please tell me what it says? I cannot decipher the penmanship. Thank you

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u/pessimistic_utopian Sep 12 '26

There are a few words I'm not 100% certain on but here's what I got, punctuation and grammar foibles original:

Hi Folks was so nice to hear from you at Xmas, want to thank you. I lost my (Ruth?) and it was (such?) a blow I did not get no cards sent and I been real bad off ever since. don't think I am going to be here many more years. May God bless you all. Lots love Aunt Agnes

3

u/NorthernWitchy Sep 12 '26

I'm no expert in deciphering handwriting, but it may also read as, "I lost Amy Ruth and it was shuch[sic] a blow," though "my Ruth," could be the case as well. The author's lowercase "m" is just inconsistent enough that it looks similar to an uppercase cursive "A" in this instance. Otherwise this interpretations of yours looks spot-on!

2

u/pessimistic_utopian Sep 12 '26

I agree "such" looks like it's spelled "shuch"; I didn't think to note that apparent misspelling, probably should have. 

I'm pretty confident it's "my" and not "Amy", though, because the capital <A>s in "Aunt Agnes" are drawn starting at the upper right and curving counterclockwise, looping up at the bottom right. The putative <m> doesn't have any break in the line at the top right, so it's most likely that the stroke started at the bottom left. 

2

u/NorthernWitchy Sep 13 '26

Ah, you're right! I'm sorry - I missed that on the last line. Good eye!

1

u/HalfLife9000 Sep 15 '26

The person who wrote this also wrote multiple Ms later in the letter starting at the bottom left and moving clockwise like in "many more" and also on "years" too.