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1975 Postcard To Germany

Marvin Lanahan



Sometimes it is the small details of a picture postcard which makes it interesting. This time it is the tourist buses and cars parked in St. Peter's Square in this picture from 1975. It is something you don't see in pictures of St. Peter's square these days!


Looking at the back side of this postcard shows some interesting details. It was sent to Frau El. Nardin-Schlömer in Bergisch Gladbach Germany, a city in the western side of Germany. The German written message reads:
"Dear Lisbeth, For your name day, I wish you all the best. We are well accommodated in Casa Pallotti. Today we were in the audience hall of the Pope. Everything else is oral. The weather is sunny. Best wishes also to Anton, many greetings, Your Martha".
The postcard is written on November 19th, the Feast Day of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. St. Elizabeth was a princess and a member of the Third Order of St. Francis, known for her charity and dedication to the poor and sick.

The name day is a tradition in many cultures where a person celebrates the feast day of a saint or religious figure for whom they were named. It's similar to a birthday, but rather than marking the anniversary of a person's birth, it commemorates the day dedicated to their namesake saint. In many countries, name days are celebrated with gifts and well-wishes, much like birthdays. The post card shows Martha wishing her friend, Lisbeth, a name day greeting of well wishes.

Martha also points out that she and her fellow traveler, or travelers, are staying at Casa Pallotti. Casa Pallotti, also known as Casa per Ferie San Vincenzo Pallotti, is a guest house in Rome that accommodates pilgrims and visitors. It is run by the Pallottine Sisters, a religious congregation founded by Saint Vincent Pallotti. The guest house is located in the historic center of Rome, near Porta Maggiore, and offers a welcoming environment for pilgrims to stay while visiting the holy sites in the city.

In the postcard message, Martha also writes: "Everything else is oral." This phrase means that the sender intends to share additional details or information in person or through a spoken conversation, rather than writing it down in the postcard. It's a way of saying that they have more to say, but they prefer to communicate it verbally, perhaps due to the personal nature of the information or simply to save space on the postcard.

The stamp on the postcard is from the 1975 Vatican City issue commemorating the 500th Anniversary of the Vatican Apostolic Library, specifically the 70 lira stamp showing Pope Sixtus IV naming Sacchi Apostolic Librarian. The postmark is dated November 20th 1975.The postmark has a 16mm circle, a 10mm space, then with 7 wave horizontal wave lines. It is a machine canceled, Holy Year postmark, similar to type IV-15. [The IV-15 type postmark is documented in Vatican Notes May 2001 (Vol 49 Number 6 page 12).] The postmark has "AN.IVB MCMLXXV" in the upper part of the circle which refers to the Holy Year (Anno Iubilaei) 1975. The Latin abbreviation "AN.IVB" stands for "Anno Iubilaei," which means "Jubilee Year." The Roman numerals "MCMLXXV" represent the year 1975.