Beverly Tetterton has been surrounded by postcards since childhood.
The Wilmington, NC, resident remembers sitting under the steps of a great-aunt’s house, flipping through an album full of cards.
When the great-aunt died, Tetterton inherited the album. Before she knew it, the collection began growing.
“[I]t just sort of got out that little Beverly collects postcards, so they would just come in the mail, even from people I didn’t know,” Tetterton told the StarNews last week.
Tetterton now has more than 2,000 postcards. Since many of them were mailed to her from relatives, the collection serves as a kind of history of her family.
She’s part of a wave of enthusiasts who are giving new life to old cards.
For example, the Postcards from the Past Twitter feed has amassed more than 26,000 followers, while Miami University is cataloging and digitizing old cards to use them as historical research tools.
Tetterton, who still sends postcards when she travels, is thinking about who’ll inherit her collection someday.
“I am going to be a grandmother in January,” she said. “I am going to have a grandson and it would be my dream come true if he likes postcards.”