Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Postcard of Washington Irving's Family Plot


This postcard arrived with an old book I purchased on eBay.

It is a picture of the grave of the author, Washington Irving (1783-1859), in the Irving family plot at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Tarrytown, Westchester County, New York.

A plot of recent generations of my family lies just beyond the view of this scene. It would have been great to see the stones as they appeared decades ago.

The postcard was addressed to Ethel Hauptman at 2 Eastern Avenue in Ossining, New York. (Sing Sing was the former name for this village.)



In the 1920 census in Ossining, Ethel was twenty years old and living with her parents, Eddy and Addie, at the address on the postcard. All were born in New York.



Lack of a stamp or postmark on the card could indicate that it was never mailed.