St. Valentine’s Day 1882

The Fairbury Journal-News is offering something new on the editorial page, by offering something not new. We have sifted through our archives and found some old columns written by former staff. Some are funny, some are interesting and some are just plain weird. We think some are worth reprinting. They give insight into what people were thinking back in the day. Hence the name of this new series: “What Were They Thinking? By Dora O. Miller First Published February 16, 1973An old-fashioned valentine which dates back to Feb. 14, 1882, I found among my souvenirs. It is of lace paper creation adorned with blue for-get-me-nots, butterflies, other posies and dainty embellishments. The envelope, too, is of beautiful design, with a heavily embossed wide border. It was sent to Miss Amelia somebody in the long ago.Valentines, affectionate, sentimental, pictorial greetings sent on Feb. 14, had their origin away back in 270 A.D. Saint Valentine (according to one source) a Roman priest, was put to death on or about Feb. 14 back in 270 A.D. The reason was that he refused to pay tribute to pagan gods. As a martyr he was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.Another source says there were several saints by the name of Valentine and that when one of them was martyred he left a note to a young woman signed “Your Valentine,” and that started it all.Tradition says that the time of Valentine's death almost coincided with the Roman Lupercalia when young girls deposited love letters in a large urn. Young Roman lads drew out the letters, and the following year courted the girls whose names that they had drawn out, and thus Valentine's Day has been traced to that time.Originally valentines were composed by hand, but in the 18th century a book with appropriate verses was published in England. In the 19th century valentines were said to have reached their peak. Some 150,000 valentines, records show, passed through the mail in Norwich, England in 1872. That was 10 years before the above valentine was sent with a one cent stamp—probably among the first valentines used in the U.S.The valentine that Elizabeth Nelson displayed at the Diller Garden Club meeting last week was 100 or more years old. Elizabeth's maternal grand-parents and her 18-year-old uncle came to Nebraska from Illinois in a covered wagon. The sweetheart that her young uncle left behind sent him that valentine. It had a “Stop, Thief” message. He had stolen her heart, it said, and gone away. No, they never married, Elizabeth said.

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