When Laurel's grandparents died, she was given a stack of postcards from their ephemera. Little is known of the specific circumstances surrounding how the postcards came into their possession. The story is that Laurel's grandfather, a young soldier in World War II, brought them home to Canada from the war. He also brought a bride, but that is another story.
Unfortunately, Laurel can read and write only in English. If you read the posts on this blog, you will quickly see that none of the messages on the backs of the postcards are written in English, but in French, Dutch, and Flemish.
If you follow the progress of this project on Instagram, you will notice that the wonderful zenitabonita7 has translated some of the messages into English.
Many of the postcards are addressed to Jean (Jan) Van de Vyvere and his family: his wife, Jeanne and daughter, Jeannine. Most of the cards are addressed to 74 Rue de Rotterdam in Anvers/Antwerpen/Antwerp in Belgium.
Messages from Robert, who seems to be the brother of Jean, writes beautiful words. There are also postcards from sister Lucie (Luce). As well, there are postcards from people like Gaston and Julia; what is their relationship to the Van de Vyvere family? An Aunt and Uncle?
This branch of this Van de Vyvere family have been gone for decades now. Perhaps another generation of this family will find this blog or the Instagram account and make contact. These postcards have been away from the Van de Vyvere family for too long. It is long past time to send these postcards back home.
Based on the postcard addresses and names, this seems to be the likely family line; most of the information below is from Geneanet (https://en.geneanet.org/) The names highlighted in light blue people in the family who sent or received a postcard.
(Family tree updated March 23, 2020).
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