Adding A Personal Touch

Using ribbons, lace, flowers and painted leaves, a young woman's enterprise in the 1840s initiated a significant shift of cultural landscape. Desiring something more personal than the valentine cards imported from England, Ester Howland set about creating her own, personalizing them with her initial.

Valentine card sales rank number two nowadays, but commercial flavor and flair are not a "one size fits all" solution. I hold in my hand, for example, a heart-shaped creation of fancy paper, lace and ribbons, a valentine hand-crafted just for me in 1971 by my wife.

Its pages contain brief handwritten quotations chosen to convey particular feelings in our marriage of almost four years. Let me share a few.

"No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with a single thread." -- Robert Burton

"Perhaps the greatest blessing in marriage is that it lasts so long. The years, like the varying interests of each year, combine to buttress and enrich each other. Out of many shared years, one life. In a series of temporary relationships, one misses the ripening, gathering, harvesting joys, the deep, hard-won truths of marriage." -- Richard C. Cabot

"The hallmarks of true love are: 1. A genuine interest in the other person and all that he or she says and does. 2. A community of tastes, ideals and standards with no serious clashes. 3. A greater happiness in being with the one person than with any other. 4. A real unhappiness when the other person is absent. 5. A great feeling of comradeship. 6. A willingness to give and take. 7. A pride in the other person when comparisons are made." -- Newell W. Edson

"May you live all the days of your life." -- Jonathan Swift

"Trust me, and I'll do good things for you, even if to make you happy means to leave you to yourself." -- Rod McKuen

"The home is not a structure where bodies meet, but a hearthstone upon which flames mingle, separate flames of souls, which, the more perfectly they unite, the more clearly they shine and the straighter they rise toward heaven. Your home is your fortress in a warring world, where a woman's hand buckles on your armor in the morning and soothes your fatigue and wounds at night." -- Author Unknown

And from a card 30 years later:

"My heart shrinks from the prospect of living in this sinful, dark, friendless world without you. But I feel that I do wrong to anticipate sorrows. God has promised strength only for today; and in infinite mercy, He shuts the future from our view…. I have often wondered that I should have been so singularly blessed as to possess your heart, which is far more precious than all the world beside." --Adoniram Judson

And of this one who struggles to mark each relationship with her own touch, I am blessed to echo this conclusion from the Bible: "He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord."

Copyright 2003 James McAlister

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