Cy Young Note to his sister?
 

I received this Shibe Park postcard today, it's one of the rarest commercially produced postcards of this ballpark. I've seen it sell for $700+ so I was please to get it for less than $600.

The message on the back has me intrigued, I think this card may have been sent from Cy Young to his younger sister. I'd like opinions from the experts on this board.

I've done some research and found the following:

- Cy had a younger sister named Luellen
- The Cleveland team had a game in Washington on June 5, 1909
- The Cleveland team played Philadelphia on June 7 & 8, 1909
That possibly puts Cy in North Station late on the evening of June 5

Take a look, let me know what you think...thanks. Jim

I don't have any pertinent info for you, but I have to wonder. Would someone sign their full name when writing to their sister? That seems awfully strange to me.

I say yes...I'm no expert though, but it looks like his handwriting.

That, coupled with the fact that the address side appears written by a different hand altogether :confused:

Greg

Can anyone decipher the message? Looks like it starts out "Hello Kid, the strike (?) was settled Saturday" Can't really tell much from there.

Continued from above "morning and everything is quiet. Henry and Robert got through" is as far as I got, Dan. Look at the Y and G in Young on the address portion side. Totally different from Cy's writing. Was there a baseball strike around that time???

Greg

Hi Dan..For what it's worth, I do have a 1910 Red Sox team postcard sent from Joe Wood to his mother signed "Joe Wood". See my Net54 Boston Album.

What would "B of B" mean?

Jim,
Maybe that is "By By".

I think it says "By By".

1910 census shows a Lula Young living in Fincastle, VA in 1910. She was born 1882.

Luellen Young
 

Hi John...Thanks for the research and note, I've been using ancestry.com but could not find censes date for several years starting in 1909. The birth date of Cy's sister Luellen shows up as 8/11/1872 passing away in 1956.

I just did a Google search for 1910 census and then put the town's name in the search box.

Lula does not appear to be Cy Young's sister. Her father was Charlton Young, more than likely it is he that signed the postcard, Henry & Robert were her brothers, per the 1900 census.

The thing that has me curious is that generally when people back then had the same name, they signed the name (i.e. Young) in the same way they signed their own name. She more than likely addressed it to herself if in fact it's genuine.

How about the theory that this is his cousin or another relative?

I'm guessing this is the strike in question:

http://philadelphiaareatraction.com/...rike_1909.html

There is no connection to Lula Young's father and Cy Young's father.

"Hello Kid, the strike was settled Saturday morning and everything is quiet. Henry & Robert got through all right & had no trouble. I was so busy I did not have time to see anything. In some places they had a good deal of trouble. Our section was quiet the trouble only occurred in the uncivilized sections. I will write you all to morrow."

(However, I don't think Young's handwriting was anywhere near that choppy in this period, and I would guess that the second letter in the signature is a J)

JimStinson
 

The addressed portion is NOT written in a different hand its written by the same person , note the very distinctive way that the lower case "t" is crossed in both the message and in the portion that is addressed "Fincastle". In the addressed portion the last name of Young shows no resemblance whatsoever to Cy Young's signature. In addition had it been written and signed by someone in Young's family it should be noted that Young's name was DENTON not "Cy" which was his baseball nickname short for Cyclone , Legal documents and other personal correspondence of that era were signed "Denton" or "D.T." , Baseball related items ie autographs etc were signed "Cy". Hope this helps.
________________________
jim@stinsonsports.com

Jim,
Thanks for coming back and contributing to the forum.
Scott

Thanks Jim, to the naked untrained "eye" it appeared different to me, but as always I defer to your awesome expertise!! Many thanks!

Greg

My guess is he decided to get "fancy" with the address which was not that uncommon if you look at a lot of postcards over the years.

Gentlemen...This was a wonderful adventure for me, thank you for taking the time to add opinion, research and expertise to my hypothesis. I thought I might have something when I matched up Cy being in Philly the same day this postcard was sent but seemingly it may have only been a distant cousin (if that)...Thanks again. Jim

You write interesting stuff and it's nice to see you posting.