Valentine given to Elizabeth Day

Valentine in small velvet frame, containing a pretty collage overlaid on a handwritten verse by John Bowhey, farmer of Torrens Road, Kilkenny, for Elizabeth Day of Tam O'Shanter Belt, for Valentine's Day 1870. Also included is a typed transcription of the verse "...I would marry in the Spring time...', three printouts of family history papers about Elizabeth Day, John Bowhey and Richard Day, with conservator's report on the contents of the framed valentine. Family descendants believed the poem was a wedding proposal and the sealed frame remained in their hands unopened for over 100 years.

In 2010 the descendants of John and Elizabeth Bowhey opened the sealed 1870 Valentine marriage proposal John had sent to the young girl who later became his wife. The handwritten poem had been sealed within a frame for 140 years, and was finally revealed in full, conserved by Judith Andrewartha of Tasmania, and resealed. The family decided the unique item should be donated to the State Library.

The Bowheys were farmers at Tam O'Shanter Belt (now the Adelaide suburb Regency Park). A few months after Elizabeth Day received John Bowhey's poetic proposal mentioning marriage in the spring, the two were indeed married in the spring, in September 1870.

Permission to use this item for any purpose, including publishing, is not required from the State Library under these conditions of use.

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