OJAI : Cards a Reminder of More Romantic Era

Matilda Armstrong of Ojai says she enjoys her husband’s delight in sharing his valentines with others.

Besides, he always brings them back home.

Her husband, Ursel S. Armstrong, 83, is an amateur postcard collector who has amassed about 18,000 cards, neatly catalogued by picture topic, holiday theme or foreign country.

It’s the one-cent stamps, more than the gold-embossed cupids or antique rhymes, that date most of his three dozen valentine postcards back to 1906 through 1919.

His Valentine’s Day file is slim, compared to his 600 Christmas postcards or the 4,000 from foreign lands, he said, because the day of hearts and flowers has seldom been lucrative for postcard printers. “People didn’t use them. There just aren’t a lot of them,” he said.

Armstrong thinks some of his early 20th-Century cards may be worth $10 or more, but he doesn’t keep track of the market or belong to any clubs.

Instead, he packs them in plastic sleeves and takes them to where other senior citizens enjoy them as reminders of a more romantic era.

“They are only interesting to me if I can share them,” he said. “I take them to shut-ins at the hospitals so people can look at them at their leisure.”

Today he will show his collection to 20 club members at the Oak Tree House senior center in Ojai.

“Older people like us really relate to those beautiful old cards,” his wife said.

“People give them or send them to me. A few I’ve bought,” he said. “I started collecting when I was less than 1 year old.”

His first and most cherished piece is postmarked Dec. 24, 1907. It is addressed to “Baby Armstrong” in Meno, Okla., where he was born.

Armstrong became a petroleum geologist for Standard Oil and was sent to Saudi Arabia soon after the couple married in 1937.

“When I went over, they were looking for oil and were going to drill one more well,” he said. “When it came in, it was a whopper.”

The Armstrongs had to wait 18 months to be reunited for their honeymoon. Then World War II broke out. She left Saudi Arabia first and he finally got out by standing in the luggage compartment of an overcrowded flight to India.