There’s no use having a collection of something if you’re not going to take it out and look at it once in a while. Based on my modest album of flower postcards, the first decade of the 1900s must have been their heyday, and the pansy was one of the most popular subjects. The cards themselves are often beautiful, but some of their value for me certainly resides in the messages: “Dear Son, We heard your wife is sick. Your Loving Mother” or “Hello Harlen—Are you going barefooted yet. It is awful hot. I am in second reader now from Mary.”

During this period, specific flowers were said to represent certain feelings or relationships. Pansies may have gotten their name from the French “pensee,” meaning “thought;” thus a pansy postcard conveyed both the sender’s carefully penned message and the unspoken one, “I’m thinking of you.” In the garden, a pansy cheerfully presents its open face to the world while other flowers are still making plans or staying safe from the cold. It is no fair weather friend.