What beautiful envelopes. Thanks for sharing Bob, I enjoyed reading the story.
Funny thing , some people still do this. When I was little (around the time I was 4 to 9yrs old) I , my sibling and mum used to spend my summer holidays (the whole 6 weeks of it) with my maternal grandparents. My father used to stay at home, due to work. He used to write letters to us every couple of days. The envelopes (and also the letters) were always illustrated with bright coloured drawings . We always knew they were from dad as soon as they hit the door mat.
One particular envelope that I can remember clearly was a funny drawing of my cat and dad falling down steps. The cat tripped him up and broke his arm, which was hilarious to us, but not to dad, who then drove one handed (6 hours away) to join us for the rest of our summer holiday.
Sadly I never kept the letters, I can't remember what happened to them, lost over time.
Oddly enough , my mother in law today does the same . She is the only one that still writes with paper and pen. She sends letters to my son and decorates the envelopes with brightly coloured pictures . In her time she taught art as a teacher in primary and has also illustrated a welsh ghost story book.
I keep all the letters from her and put them in my son's "baby box" (a box that I have kept for my son since birth containing cards, first shoes , hospital wrist bands ect)
Sadly the art of letter writing is almost dead with almost everyone that I know, except for mum-in-law.
Kind Regards