“Dear Cuz,
Will send you a picture of Cousin Virge on our soral mare. She is a light soral with 4 white stockings. We are all well. I am better than I have been since I was a girl. Tell mamma I will write her a long letter one of these days. Momma is here and she is making her plans to come and see you this fall.
With Love from Gene. Write soon.”
The above message was on an early 1920s picture postcard sent from Abbyville, Kansas, to Mrs. Owen Botkin in Batavia, Arkansas. A photograph on the front is evidently Cousin Virge on Gene’s soral mare.
That’s what a cowboy looked like back then, although Virge doesn’t have a six-gun hanging from his waist. Abbyville was a very mellow place at this point, with no real need for one other than shooting coyotes, snakes, and skunks (four-legged and two-legged).
Abbyville, Kansas, is a small town located in Reno County in the south-central part of the state. Founded in the early 1880s, the town was named after the wife of a railroad official, reflecting the importance of railroads to its development.
Abbyville quickly became a local hub for farming and ranching families, serving as a center of community life with its school, post office, and churches. Though its population has remained modest over the years, Abbyville’s history captures the spirit of rural Kansas and the close-knit communities that defined the American Midwest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Currently, 83 people live in the town.
Finding out who Mrs. Owen Botkin was required extensive research. Born in 1845, Owen Botkin was a successful sheep rancher in Kansas, along with raising horses and pigs. His family was a large one spread out from Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
Owen Botkin died in 1900, leaving behind his widow, Julia Lieb-Botkin. She lived in Arkansas for a short time before moving to Osage County, Oklahoma, where Julia passed away on December 11, 1922, from serious burns and shock after her housecoat caught on fire. Born on August 31, 1846, she was 77 at the time of her death.
Frances Eugene “Gene” Botkin was Hazel M. McCully-Botkin’s husband. When Hazel sent the postcard, it was signed “Gene” for her husband. That threw me off and took plenty of digging to finally figure things out. Sherlock Holmes would be proud.
Gene Botkin was born April 16, 1897, and died December 15, 1972, at age 75. Hazel, Gene’s spouse, was born November 19, 1905, passing away October 9, 1974. She was only 68. The couple had one son, Dale.
I like to write junk... 