Office of Brown & Burpee, Optometrists, 940 Elm Street, Manchester NH
Many of my blog stories are generated based on the view of a curious, old postcard.
“Reception Room, Brown & Burpee” was inscribed on the front of this particular postcard. Three men are present–one sitting. There are display cases in a room that did not seem typical to me of one belonging to merchants. The sign over the fireplace states “Our work is not done, until you are satisfied.”
Manchester’s State Theatre being built. Photograph property of Dan LaRochelle, used here with his permission.
Manchester New Hampshire’s State Theatre was built on the then most important street in the city, at 1118 Elm Street on the corner of Baldwin or Washington (now called Wall Street). It reportedly opened to a sizable crowd on Thanksgiving Eve, 27 November 1929. [However the Manchester City Directory for 1930 showed only the Palace and Park Theatres as being active in the city]. At the State Theatre’s introduction, reportedly movies with sound were first brought to the city. The State Theater’s art deco facade was considered one of the loveliest in New England. What we do know for certain is that by 1931, evidenced by the photograph directly below, the State Theatre was a well known and popular landmark of Manchester.
In November of last year, I wrote about four graduates of Manchester (NH) High School of the class of 1888. So that I do not repeat myself, please see this link for the history and a photograph of that high school. For now I will focus on revealing only what happened to these four female graduates–Maude G. Fifield, Ethel G. Lamprey, Sarah G. Sawyer, and Alice M. Stuart.
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Farmer’s Cabinet (Amherst NH) Vol 70, Issue 31, Page 2; Wednesday, February 14, 1872
To day, (the 14th) is known in the calendar as St. Valentine’s Day. Many believe 
St. Valentine a myth like Santa Claus; but this is an error. St. Valentine had a history, although historical authorities differ. According to some ecclesiastical writers he was a bishop, by others a prebyter, who was beheaded in Rome in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, A.D. 270–Wheatleigh says that St. Valentine “was a man of most admirable parts, and so famous for his love and charity that the custom of choosing valentines upon his festival took its rise from thence.” Others derive the custom from birds supposed to select their mates on the 14th of February; others again from a practice prevalent at ancient Rome at the festival of the Lupercalis, being during the month of February, when, among other ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from where they were taken by young men, according as chance directed. There are frequent references to St. Valentine’s Day in Shakespeare. In this country the day is observed by sending ornamental, illustrative or comic missives to friends and foes alike.
From: Portsmouth Journal of Literature and Politics (Portsmouth NH) Vol LVII, Issue 7, Page 3 — Saturday, February 14, 1846
VALENTINE’S DAY — It is a popular superstition that the first two single people who meet in the morning of St. Valentine’s Day (February 14th) may have a chance of becoming married to each other. St. Valentine’s day has long been imagined the day whereon birds pair, and hence it has been considered peculiarly ominous to lovers, so that billets doux sent on this day, have received the cognomen of the saint. The custom of choosing Valentines is an old one; it was practised in the houses of the gentry of England as early as 1476, and is referred to in the Harleian MS by John Lydgate, the monk of Bury, in a poem written by him in praise of Queen Catherine, wife of Henry V.:
“Scynte Valentine, of custom yeere by yeere
Men have an usuance in this regioun
To loke and serche Cupides kalendere,
And chose theyr choyse by grete affeccion.
Such as ben prike with Cupides mocioun,
Takyng theyre choyse as theyre sort doth falle;
But I love oon which excellith alle.”
