Antique Forget-Me-Not Book

Hi Everyone!
In the midst of all my computer “stuff”, I’ve been acutely aware of what today is…a day we will not soon forget. So today I’m sharing a beautiful book that’s over 100 years old and is ALL about not forgetting.

Cornelia, whose beautiful tablescape was featured last Tablescape Thursday, recently came across an amazing find…a Forget-Me-Not book.

 

Have you ever seen or heard of a Forget-Me-Not book? I had not and had lots of questions for Cornelia. She graciously shared many of the beautiful pages from this special book along with information regarding the inscriptions found inside.

 

Cornelia said, “A “forget me not” book is a kind of friendship book. This one had a pious quotation for every day. The friend would put his name and his year of birth on the date of his birthday, so you will never forget your friend’s birthday. The one I bought must have been made between 1903 till 1910, because 1903 is the latest date I found.”

 

Cornelia said the pages are gold-plated or gilded. How wonderful! You don’t find many books like that in this day and time.

 

Cornelia said, “Unfortunately the name of the original owner is not mentioned in the book. But I can trace it back due to the names of the people who have signed where this lady must have lived (There are several names of prominent families of the small town where the Lady lived and where her home was).

These are pictures of the small town where the owner of the Forget Me Not book had lived. It is near Schaffhausen.”

 

Cornelia continued, “There are also signatures from young ladies who remarked that they were at Neuchâtel at the time of signing. This means that the owner was a young lady who belonged to family with a certain social and financial background otherwise they would not have been able to send their daughter to a College in the French Part of Switzerland. It was very common among the middle and upper class to send young Swiss-German speaking girls to boarding school in the French part of Switzerland so they could accomplish their French.”

Let’s take a peek inside. I’ll let Cornelia tell you all about the beautiful inscriptions…the following comments are all from Cornelia…

Forget-Me-Not book

 

 

 

 

 

This is from her former Teacher:
Dein ehemaliger Lehrer (your former teacher)
1854. Joh. Meyer (Johann=John Meyer), 26.V.1900

 

This is the Signature of her Teacher:
It says: A. Kissling, Lehrer (Teacher), 1881, Langendorf. Langendorf is a small village in the canton of Solothurn, in the western part of Switzerland.

Forget Me Not Book

 

This means: Your Godfather, Wilhelm Wildberger, born 1847

 

This says:
Lydia Meyer von Schleitheim
1879
Schleitheim is a village in the canton of Schaffhausen near the German border

 

 

This entrance says Elsa Müller, Bamberg (Germany), 1883
It was made on the 10th of August 1902!

 

There was a piece of paper in the book which I have discovered just now. It
says: Oberofficials Tochter! What does this mean? Internetresearch helped
me: This must have been the daughter of a member of the k.u.k (kaiserlich
und könglich; imperial and royal) army of Austria/Hungary !
That is really amazing!

Forget Me Not Book 2

 

The signature of her cousin:
Clara Probst, 1885

 

What I forgot to mention is that some of the entrances are written in the old German font. This is very difficult to read. The changed this type of writing after the First world war. My great-grandmother used to write like this.

 

 

Forget Me Not Book 3

This entrance shows that the owner was in Neuchâtel in the year of 1903. The young lady who signed comes from Buochs, a village at the lake of Lucerne, the central part of Switzerland.
It says:
Maria Risi Buochs 1884
Neuchâtel 1903

According to the first name and the place of origin the young Lady must have
been catholic. A protestant girl would have been christened Marie but never
Maria. This was a catholic name at this time.

 

Cornelia, thanks so much for sharing this beautiful Forget-Me-Not book. It is especially poignant to view its pages today as we remember all those who were lost on this date nine years ago. Forget me not. We pledge we will remember, we promise we will not forget…not today, not ever.

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Comments

  1. Susan (My Place to Yours) says

    Beautiful book! Thank you, Susan and Cornelia, for the remembrances. …I'm remembering at My Place to Yours, today, too. http://myplacetoyours.blogspot.com/2010/09/do-you-pray.html

  2. Susan, I had all kinds of virus using the one you mentioned. I wish you luck with your new one!
    I have been trying a few free trials before I buy one.

  3. What a precious little treasure!
    I enjoyed reading. YES, I too had a virus back last year. I learned my lesson, too. But,I didn't have my pictures on a backup!:( Spyware is what I use, it is a free download too. I highly recommend others to take heed of our warnings. It is amazing what spyware catches weekly;
    Have a wonderful weekend.
    Karen

  4. What a beautiful idea! I want a Forget Me Not book.

    Of to search for one.

  5. Susan (Between Naps on the Porch) says

    Karen, are you using Spybot?

  6. Glenda/MidSouth says

    What a treasure to have! Thanks Cornelia and Susan for sharing.
    Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

  7. Oh how interesting. My husband's family came from Switzerland. They spoke German. We had the pleasure to visit thier hometown Erlenbach, Switzerland a couple of years ago. We also inherited the Family Swiss Bible dated 1868. We recently had it refurbished. Thanks for sharing.

  8. So sorry for all the computer troubles..
    May I tell you that an average blog load is less than 30 seconds..some around 7 seconds..Your blog is loading so so slow …I am testing it now on StopWatch and it is still not fully loaded at over 4 Minutes..
    You may need to check this for yourself…. I've been noticing for quite sometime that the blogs seem to be loading slower and slower..some slower than others. We've added so much stuff on our sidebars..the music is the No. ONE killer..I took mine off..
    I've been working on mine all day long..just tested at just over 4 seconds.
    Just hoping you might be able to do some things to help…

    This is such a lovely book…
    hugs, bj

  9. Susan (Between Naps on the Porch) says

    Hi BJ,
    I took the music off once and had some complaints. 🙁 I just need to do it for good, I guess.
    Thanks for letting me know. I'll look into this!

  10. Terry @ La Bella Vie says

    Simply beautiful dear friend. What a perfect book for such a day in history.
    Thank you to you and Cornelia for sharing this lovliness with us today.
    Terry

  11. Susan (Between Naps on the Porch) says

    BJ, the other thing that will slow the loading of the blog down is if the computer is a bit older or if the internet connection is a bit slower. BNOTP loaded in about 5-7 seconds on my 3 year old laptop and loads within about 1 second on my new computer. But I do have high a speed internet connection…so that makes a difference, too. I will remove the music again…will need to warn folks in advance though so they can create their own playlist at Playlist.com.
    Thanks again for mentioning this!

  12. Mid-Atlantic Martha says

    What a sweet treasure that book is — sorry about all your computer troubles — hope all is fixed now.

  13. Entertaining Women says

    Now this is a lovely idea and a wonderful treasure. The closest thing that I ever had to this was probably an autograph hound that looked like a Dachshund that I had as a child. This is so much better! Thank you for sharing this charming post. Cherry Kay

  14. Wonderful posting for rememberance. What an interesting life this young lady lead! And what a lovely keepsake.

    I have Norton on my home computer. Never a virus problem. Whatever we have at work is useless. We constantly get those viruses that attach to email and send out zillions.

    I would like to get ahold of the nasty virus writers!!!!

  15. Gorgeous and so timely

  16. Susan, good luck with the new computer.
    Thank you for sharing this delightful little book. My mother has one that I think belonged to my grandmother. I need to ask her about it the next time I visit. I've always enjoyed looking at it because it represents such history and thoughtfulness. The handwritten names, dates, etc. Now you have me curious as to where the book is. Either my mom has it or my sister. I certainly don't want it lost. 🙂
    ~ Sarah

  17. What a sweet and special book. I'd never heard of Forget Me Not books. I also love old handwriting…so much prettier than most of us today! I have used Trend Micro Internet Security for awhile and have been pleased. It came highly recommended.

  18. What a sweet and precious book. I had never head of Forget Me Not books. I love old handwriting…so much prettier than most today. I have used Trend Micro Internet Security for awhile and have been very pleased. It came highly recommended.

  19. Blondie's Journal says

    Beautiful book, Susan…just priceless. I really enjoyed looking at it! Thank you for sharing it with us!

    xoxo
    Jane

  20. Hi Susan! Sorry for your puter woes. Glad you're back up and running!
    Just one thing to mention, if you download too many spyware protection programs, they may not be compatible and can mess things up for you. I've experienced that before.
    What a lovely book and very timely.
    Be a sweetie,
    Shelia 😉

  21. Usually you load pronto on my high speed. The odd time it is slow but that could be at my end not yours.
    Happy to see the music go as I am usually doing 3 things at once when visiting blogs and between conversation, typing, reading the blog and often a t.v. on too it is distracting. Sometimes my volume is higher than normal and suddenly I get a blast of sound and have to scramble to find the play list to shut it down.
    As a genealogy researcher I almost squealed when I saw that book. What a treasure that is.
    To have the godparent and the cousins names. Huge clues.

  22. What a beautiful book. I love the elegant handwriting.

    I, too, used to have AVG. Got a couple of those viruses that are fake anti-virus programs. Completely hosed up my computer. Couldn't even get on the internet. I switched to Microsoft Security Essentials, but unfortunately I got the same kind of virus using it. The Geek Squad cleaned it up and put another kind of anti-virus on my laptop (something by Trend), but I went back to Microsoft after the trial period was over. I'm convinced that none of them are foolproof, and I refuse to pay for anti-virus protection that doesn't always work.

    I voted in the poll that it loads for me in 30-45 seconds. It loads enough for me to start reading faster than that, but I was counting until it completely loaded.

  23. Lovely book!

  24. Your blog loads realy quickly for me, but then the music is not playable over here in the UK, so I don't get it anyway. I use Spybot along with AVG, no trouble so far, touch wood!
    The book is wonderful, isn't that cursive writing with a ''dipping'' pen gorgeous!!
    Hugs

  25. Hi Susan,
    Yes, loading your blog has been slower and slower (but worth the wait) I don't have a blog as you know, but I am guessing that the size of the header and the ads will slow things down. My reason for saying this is, a couple of months ago I had computer trouble and had to call a computer tech to the house. He stated that tons of spyware come attached to ads and recommended that I download "spy bot" and run it everyday since I visit so many blogs that have ads. Spy bot is free and I have seen a big difference. My computer was fully protected by McAfee, but it wasn't stopping the spyware from attaching.

    Onto Cornelia's beautiful book. I have never heard of a book like her's. Her book is lovely and what fun is is to see the handwriting of those who lived so long ago. It is the perfect book for yesterday's post. Thank you Cornelia.

    Mary

  26. My goodness what an amazing find:) Thank you for sharing!

  27. A truly wonderful book, thank you for sharing, Cornelia.
    I visited Switzerland a couple of times in the 1960's, beautiful country.
    Regarding loading your web page Susan, I have no problem at all, it is up right away.

  28. What a treasure to have! I also noticed that the signatures of all the people are all so pretty, like calligraphy….Christine

  29. How delightful! Thanks for sharing it with us!
    Rhondi

  30. As a young girl, I had an autograph book. Oh, how I wish I still had it. The one autograph and sentiment that I remember was the one my grandmother wrote. It was:

    "Think of me when you are happy,
    Save for me one little spot,
    In the depths of thine affection,
    Plant a sweet forget-me-not."

    From my Grandma Friend. She lived up to her last name, too!

  31. Marilyn Holeman says

    Hi Susan, I love your blog, and thank you for sharing the charming remembrance book.

    On my computer, we have deleted Microsoft completely, and installed Linux. It is a free operating system. Most viruses are targeted at Microsoft products. My browser is Firefox, also free, and it works very well.

    I did want to WARN PEOPLE, though, NOT to use the same password on multiple accounts. I used the same one on my email and Facebook, as well as other non-secure accounts. When someone stole my password, they were able to get into these accounts, change my password, lock me out, and then, pretending to be me, ask my friends and acquaintances for money.

    Sorry for the long comment, but I wanted to tell people to choose different passwords for different accounts, and save yourself from problems. Thanks for the soapbox! 🙂

  32. your beautiful blog usually locks up my computer and I rarely get to see it as I have to shut my computer down and reboot. If it does load it takes about 15 minutes – I have to walk off….and I have a new computer and fast connection!

  33. Katie@LeBeauPaonVictorien says

    What a great book! I'd love to find one like that also!
    My husband's father emigrated from Germany when he was a boy with his parents. They always spoke German at home–although I'm not often able to get my FIL to speak German to me! I took German in school for 7 years and I'm still fairly good at deciphering it, even though I can't speak it fluently anymore. My husband's grandmother gave me all their German ancestry paperwork, which she had to assemble during the time of Nazi Germany, because German citizens had to prove their German ancestry. It's all in the 'old'
    German script too and was a challenge to decipher!

  34. What a beautiful book, a real treasure. I went to Lucerne, Switzerland and it is a lovely, lovely area. I work in a house museum and there are a couple of autograph books in the collection from the 1890s, but I have never seen a Forget me Not book–I will definitely keep a look out for one.

  35. What a wonderful post!! Thank you so much for sharing that. That book is a real treasure and I too will never forget this date.

  36. I forgot to add that I follow over 300 blogs – different subjects and some for work. Your blog is the ONLY blog that does not load in 1 to 2 seconds. 9 out of 10 times it will lock up my browser and I have to restart. Note that none of my other 300+ blogs do this – only yours.

    you may want to dig deeper for a problem as I do not think it is my computer since all other blogs (over 300) load in 1 to 2 seconds.

    I hope you can figure it out so we can all enjoy your blog.

    Thanks!

  37. This is so sweet! When you posted this (on Sat.) that was the day of my daughter's wedding!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, I am JUST seeing this now. It was a PERFECT day in EVERY way! I will have alot of fabulous memories of the day. Hope you are good and the computer STUFF is all straightened out now:) Love, Pinky

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