The name of the sender of this card, mailed from Hygiene on April 16, 1909, is not readable, but he or she begins the card with “Dear Sister and Brother.” The sender states, most likely in reference to the photo on the reverse, that “the old folks and the dog Harrison is getting to feel quite well again.”
Hygiene is in Boulder County and sits just south of Highway 66 about 4 miles west of Longmont. The town derives its name from the Hygiene House sanitarium, an elegant three-story, 35-room home with a glassed-in sun deck, designed for the treatment of people with tuberculosis, built by the Reverend Jacob Stoner Flory in 1881. Reverend Flory, accompanied by his wife and family, came to the area in the 1870’s. The existing town in the area at that time was Pella, which saw the first influx of members of the Church of the Brethren, a Christian denomination also known as “German Baptists” or the “Dunkards.” (Pella is most likely named for Pella, Iowa, which began as a settlement of Dutch immigrants in 1847.) Reverend Flory became involved with this church, and a Church of the Brethren was built in 1880. In May of 1883, Flory made application to establish the Hygiene post office, and at that point Pella became Hygiene. Hygiene House later became a hotel and was torn down in 1926.
Services at the Church of the Brethren were suspended in 1907, but the structure, still standing, is on the National Register of Historic Places and a designated Boulder County Landmark. It’s located at the Hygiene Cemetery on Hygiene Road (17th Avenue). The original Pella Cemetery lies to the south. You can see photos of the old church at http://www.hygienecemetery.com/gallery.php
REFERENCES:
– “Church of the Brethren, Hygiene, Colorado,” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Vrain_Church_of_the_Brethren
– Google Maps
– “Hygiene, Boulder County, Colorado Genealogy,” at www.familysearch.org,
– “Pella,” by Ann Miller (see “Resources”) at www.hygienecemetery.com
– “Pella, Iowa,” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pella,_Iowa
– Visit Longmont Colorado at www.visitlongmont.org/whats-in-a-name-hygiene-colorado
