Sentiments from The Pansy Album

Hello!

Last year I posted about an antiques shop that I like to visit in Concord, Massachusetts when we are up there each year, and last week was no different. It is Thoreauly Antiques, and you can read my post here. I didn't plan on spending a lot of time in there this time, as we were getting hungry and headed to lunch, but imagine my surprise when I walked in the door and immediately spotted something that I have been hoping to find for quite some time now. And that was a vintage autograph album that isn't selling for a fortune.

I fell in love with it the minute I saw it.

It is in perfect condition. 

And I love pansies...

The edges of the pages are the prettiest gold...

Not only is its frontispiece beautiful,

but it still has the album blotter contained within.

It's a miracle that it wasn't lost somewhere along the line.

I wonder how many people gently placed this blotter

behind the page that they were writing on to protect

the next page from the ink of the fountain pen 

bleeding through...

The penmanship is so beautiful.

Why can't we write like that anymore?...

Some of the pages had a beautiful pansy in the corner.

This sentiment was written five years after the previoius ones...

...and this one came earlier, but was written on a later page.

I imagine that they just opened the book to any page,

and spoke what was in their heart.

This one was from Douglas...

The Victorians were so demure,

yet they were so free with their sweet words...

If you click on the photo below,

you will see that her son signed on the left.

Was it his wife that signed on the right?

And they signed in 1910.

There is no indication of who this album belonged to,

but she must have kept and treasured it for many years...

The entries below were made towards the end of the book,

but were dated 1893...

There are still many blank pages in the book.

More blank pages than not.

What was the rest of the story? 

What became of the owner,

and how did this treasure end up in an antiques store?

Were there no ancestors that would have wanted to keep it?

I wish I could travel back in time to watch this ladies and

gentlemen signing this book.

Wouldn't that be something?