This is from my collection of photographs.

Photo taken near Little Beach Ogunquit Maine, Date?? – 20 years ago

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From my postcard collection

From my postcard collection

This is not our farm in New Hampshire – how I wish it were. But what attracted me to this postcard image was the location in Belmont – not Belmont Mass where I grew up but Belmont New Hampshire – New Hampshire where several family members had farms. Those New Hampshire farms evoke so many memories. e.g .did my sister Ruth really throw a stone at the farm horse and the horse bolted making my sister Nan fall off and break her arm??

I have been on the lookout for hand colored postcards published by the Brush and Needle Studio in Ogunquit Maine. I haven’t come across any yet……..but wait, here is one right under my nose.

I was about to dismiss this card as being quite uninteresting, but then it sort of popped out at me that this was exactly (almost) what I was looking for. It must have been a very early one published by the Brush & Needle. I had been looking for hand-colored cards and hadn’t realized there were black & white ones. The B&N Studio was just across the street from Oar Weed Cove.

I worked and lived in the Studio the summer of 1957. The artist who did the cards was sort of like a grandmother to me and I became very fond of her and her sister. We are in fact related – these sisters were my uncle’s mother and aunt – Mimi and Auntie Alma.

Time moves on and the Brush and Needle became and is still Barnacle Billie’s!

1. 1. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
2. 2. South Riding by Winifred Holtby
3. 3. Deep River by Karl Marlantes
4. 4. BIRDIE by Candace Simar
5. 5. Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

The list is short but 2 of the books were long, but long or relatively short, each one was well worth reading.