An Engagement Present? The Story of Clara M. Robertson

I won this Congress 606 “Priscilla” deck on eBay in 2017 and I asked the seller if he had any info about the note I found attached to the inside portion of the box. He had no idea it was even there and said he got it from a friend who found the deck at a yard sale in Kansas City (seller was from another town in Missouri).

The inscription reads:

Priscilla at her wheel To Clara M. Robertson From Uncle John Rochester June 21, 1906 (South Berwick, ME, January 23, 1823)

I sent what information I had to my dad (and fellow 52 plus Joker member Dave Seaney), as I could not fully read the writing. Within 4 hours, he helped me obtain all of the information listed here through his network of genealogy groups.

Clara Morse Jones (née Robertson) born June 11, 1871 in Cuyahoga County, OH and died March 15, 1950 in Kansas City, MO. She married Gould E. Jones June 26, 1907. Clara was a schoolteacher at Washington high school in Kansas City and Gould was in real estate. They had no kids. Uncle John Marr was born in South Berwick, ME on January 23, 1823. He lived in Rochester, NY according to the 1900 census. He died in 1916 in Cuyahoga County, OH. Could this deck have been an engagement present? In 1906, this deck cost 50¢, or $17.24 in 2024.

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Scroll to bottom the of this page to watch my YouTube video about Clara and Gould