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Shopping Saturday: Melvey Contractors

Today's blogging prompt...Shopping Saturday!  Share advertising or information about an ancestor's business.

One of my favorite websites for research as of late is Genealogy Bank...a database of historical newspapers, obituaries, advertisements, and just about everything.  I've had great success finding stories that add context to our family history research.  Found this advertisement a few weeks back - an entry from the Moorhead Daily News in December 1941:

(Jay N. Melvey Contractors.  "Home Building Advertisement".  Moorhead Daily News, 12 December 1941.  http://www.genealogybank.com; accessed February 2013.)

Jay N. Melvey, listed above, is my husband Paul's paternal grandfather Jalmer Melvey.  He continued the family business (originally started by father Nels N. Melvey in Moorhead, MN).  In my own "past life" - as in, life before children! - I enjoyed working in the print media industry.  Specifically, newspaper advertising.  What I love most about this print ad is the artistic design (before the dawn of Adobe!), vision, and honesty expressed in the text.  "Why not change it from an idea into a reality?"  I'm sold!  I wonder if the home sketch in the ad is an actual layout from a home constructed by Mr. Melvey?

Thank you, GenealogyBank, for contributing to the context of our family history!

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