No letters this week, but there's other good news

It's been another one of those weeks, and I didn't make time for reading through more of Grandma's letters. Sorry about that.

But here's what I dd do: My brother, Tony, and I have been helping my dad, Don, sort through long-packed items in a storage shed. Lots of these things we haven't sorted through since before we moved to Utah from Wyoming in 1973.

On Saturday, we found a box with a weathered old photo album containing postcards -- page after page of them from about, oh, 1905 to 1920 (roughly). This adds to the number I already have, about 150, that we located in a shoebox last year and that I've begun to feature on this Web page. They're all really great, with lots and lots from Grandma's McIntosh siblings, cousins and friends.

While that's cool enough, among the postcards in the book are a number of photo postcards -- apparently it was popular during that era to take photos, then have them made into postcards you could mail to friends and family. Among these picture postcards are several of Grandma that I'd never seen before. So, as soon as I can get around to it, I'll scan them and post them on the Web site -- I'll announce the postings here.

I sort of skimmed the writing on the backs of the cards as I was removing them from the haggard old book, and was hoping for our version of the Holy Grail: Maybe one from Grandpa to Grandma. I didn't see one, but that doesn't mean one isn't there. I'll look more closely in the weeks and/or months to come.

I'll let you know if we uncover any more treasures as we dig through the storage shed in the weeks to come. This one was completely unexpected.

I should also add that my mother, Helen, let me borrow her copy of "Sagebrush and Roses," the thorough history of Otto and Burlington, Wyo., written by Carla Neves Loveland. I'm about 200 pages into it, and it's a lot of fun to read. There is at least one photo of mother and her siblings that I've never seen before -- I'll post it here sometime soon -- and plenty of Old West intrigue: Like the time Ira McIntosh -- brother of Mary and Roah -- watched a man get shot in the back and killed outside the Garland Hotel over some dispute; our Great-Grandmother Nancy Lena Guhl McIntosh forbade him from testifying after the killer(s) threatened his life.

And this was in 1910!