Another Story From 316 Euclid: The Postcard of Elsa Frahm

A postcard mailed in 1909 opens an earlier chapter in the history of an address we had only recently begun researching.

Sometimes historical research begins deliberately. Other times, an artifact seems to arrive at exactly the right moment.

In August 2026, Historic Poplar Bluff shared the story of Paul C. Hays Jr. and the Hays family, whose history became intertwined with the Rodgers Theatre, the State Bank of Poplar Bluff, Hays Music Store, and other pieces of twentieth-century Poplar Bluff history.

One of the places connected with that family was 316 Euclid Avenue.

Then, the morning after we shared that story, we acquired another old Poplar Bluff postcard.

It had been mailed more than a century ago, on September 30, 1909.

And written at the bottom of the message was an address we immediately recognized:

316 Euclid Ave.

The sender's name made the coincidence even more intriguing.

Elsa Frahm.

Paul C. Hays would later have a daughter named Elsa Hays, so for a moment we wondered whether the postcard had unexpectedly uncovered an earlier connection to the same family.

It had not.

Instead, Elsa Frahm led us to an entirely different family—and an earlier chapter in the history of the same address.

"Where the X is I live"

The postcard itself is a view looking north from the top of the old Butler County Courthouse in downtown Poplar Bluff.

Elsa addressed it to a friend in Chicago. Her brief message contained something especially interesting:

"Where the X is I live. Where the O is my Pa works."

She then marked the photograph itself.

An X points toward the area of her home, while an O circles a downtown building associated with where her father worked.

It is a wonderfully ordinary message.

Elsa was not documenting Poplar Bluff for historians. She was simply showing a friend where she lived and where her father went to work.

More than a century later, those little marks give the postcard an entirely different significance.

Who Was Elsa Frahm?

Elsa Clara Hattie Frahm was born January 5, 1892, in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Maximilian "Max" Frahm and Clara Melcher Frahm.

By 1909, the Frahm family was in Poplar Bluff.

Elsa would have been only 17 years old when she sent our postcard.

And the Frahms were apparently not simply passing through town.

Newspaper accounts soon reveal Elsa and her family participating in Poplar Bluff's social and musical life.

Max Frahm was identified as director of the Poplar Bluff Choral Club, and Elsa was a soprano soloist at the Christian Church. Music seems to have been an important part of the family's life.

In July 1910, Elsa Frahm appeared with Pauline Harrington, William Mauch and Max Frahm as a mixed quartet performing at Poplar Bluff's Lyceum Theatre. Newspaper coverage described the four as among the city's best-known singers and praised their selections.

That musical circle would also change Elsa's life.

Elsa and William Mauch

Among the singers performing with Elsa was William H. Mauch.

By September 1911, their relationship had become news.

A local newspaper reported Elsa's engagement to Mauch, describing her as the daughter of Max Frahm, director of the Poplar Bluff Choral Club, and noting that she was a soprano soloist at the Christian Church. Mauch was described as a tenor.

Their mutual interest in music, the newspaper explained, had brought them together.

Another account gives us something particularly useful for the history of 316 Euclid.

The engagement was announced during a surprise gathering at the Frahm home at 316 Euclid Avenue.

So Elsa's handwritten return address on our postcard wasn't an isolated clue. Contemporary newspaper reporting independently places the Frahm family there.

On November 29, 1911, Elsa Frahm and William Mauch were married at Poplar Bluff's Christian Church.

The newspaper devoted considerable space to the wedding.

The church was decorated with flowers and ferns. Mary Ruth served as maid of honor, and Elsa's father, Max Frahm, accompanied her to the altar. Other members of the Frahm family participated in the ceremony.

Afterward, the wedding party returned to the home of Elsa's parents for a reception.

The newspaper then reported that William Mauch had prepared a cottage on Euclid Avenue for his bride.

For at least this brief period, several generations and branches of Elsa's life were centered around the same Poplar Bluff neighborhood.

"Where my Pa works"

Elsa's other mark on the postcard may be even more interesting.

The O she drew on the photograph circles a building immediately across Pine Street from the old Butler County Courthouse, near Main Street.

Her father, Max Frahm, was associated with the Dalton Adding Machine Company.

Independent historical documentation helps make sense of what Elsa marked.

The National Register nomination for the Moore-Dalton House states that James L. Dalton established a small Dalton Adding Machine operation at the northeast corner of Main and Pine Streets. Another National Register study identifies its original quarters as the Davidson Building at Main and Pine, where the company initially employed about 25 people.

That corresponds remarkably well with the location Elsa circled on her postcard.

But there is an important complication.

1909—the very year Elsa mailed the postcard—was a period of transition for Dalton.

The company had grown substantially and constructed a much larger purpose-built factory along the riverfront on South Second Street that year. Later records consequently place Dalton's operation there rather than at Main and Pine.

By 1914, the Poplar Bluff city directory listed the Dalton Adding Machine Company at 120–220 South Second Street.

For that reason, we have resisted assigning a precise street number to the building Elsa marked.

What we can say is more interesting anyway:

Elsa herself pointed to it and told us that was where her father worked.

Combined with the documentary evidence placing Dalton's early operation at Main and Pine, her little handwritten circle becomes a piece of evidence in its own right.

What Happened at 316 Euclid?

The postcard also raised another question:

Was the house occupied by the Frahms in 1909 the same house standing at 316 Euclid today?

We don't yet know.

Another newspaper item from May 1909 places W. J. Sutton at 316 Euclid Avenue, where he was advertising household goods—including a piano, bed lounge, mattresses, tables, screens, a lawn mower and stove—for sale.

Only a few months later, Elsa Frahm gave 316 Euclid as her address.

That sequence raises the possibility that the Sutton household was leaving and the Frahms subsequently occupied the property, although we have not yet established ownership or an exact transfer.

In May 1913, another advertisement offered a modern five-room house at 316 Euclid Avenue for sale or rent.

Then, in March 1914, another newspaper notice places Mrs. C. N. Hill at 316 Euclid.

So the address had already accumulated several occupants before the family that originally led us there entered the picture.

There is another complication: modern property information dates the present house at 316 Euclid to approximately 1920.

That leaves several possibilities. The construction date may be approximate. An earlier house may have occupied the property. The present structure may have replaced or substantially altered an earlier building. Street numbering could also have changed.

For now, the evidence allows us to document the address beginning at least by 1909, but not yet to say confidently that the existing house is the structure Elsa knew.

That remains an open question.

Then Came the Hays Family

By the 1920s, the address appears in another chapter of Poplar Bluff history.

Newspaper accounts from 1925 place Mrs. Paul C. Hays at 316 Euclid Avenue, where she hosted a large reception for an out-of-town guest.

The description is remarkable.

Approximately 200 guests were reportedly received during the afternoon. The home and grounds were transformed into a May garden, with flowers, greenery, Japanese lanterns, canary birds and even swinging parrots incorporated into the decorations.

The address was no longer the Frahm residence.

It was now associated with the Hays family.

Later city directories make that connection unmistakable. The 1931 directory lists Paul C. Hays and members of his family at 316 Euclid.

By 1945, **Paul C. Hays Sr., Buena Hays, Paul Jr., Miles—and Elsa Hays—**were associated with the address.

And that brings our research full circle.

Two Elsas, One Address

The Elsa who mailed our postcard in 1909 was not Elsa Hays.

There appears to be no family relationship between them.

Elsa Frahm married William Mauch in 1911. The family eventually left Poplar Bluff, and Elsa spent much of her later life in Michigan. She died there in 1969 at the age of 77.

Decades after Elsa Frahm had written 316 Euclid Ave. on her postcard, another young woman named Elsa would be associated with that same address as part of the Hays family.

It was coincidence—not genealogy.

But it was exactly that coincidence that caused us to investigate.

One Address, Many Stories

This is one of the reasons Historic Poplar Bluff has increasingly tried to connect people, places, photographs, newspapers, postcards and physical artifacts rather than treating each as an isolated record.

A house is more than its architecture.

A postcard is more than its picture.

A name in a city directory is more than a line of text.

In this case, our research into Paul C. Hays Jr. led us to 316 Euclid Avenue.

The very next morning, a postcard entered our collection that had been mailed from that same address 117 years earlier.

It seemed at first that the two stories might be connected.

They weren't.

And in discovering that they weren't, we found another story worth preserving.

A 17-year-old girl named Elsa Frahm once looked at a picture of Poplar Bluff, drew an X and an O on it, and sent it to a friend hundreds of miles away.

This is where I live.

This is where my father works.

More than a century later, those two little marks helped us find her again.

Research Note

Our research into 316 Euclid Avenue is ongoing. Newspaper advertisements and articles establish the address by 1909, while modern property information gives the existing structure an approximate construction date of 1920. We therefore do not presently claim that the house standing at 316 Euclid today is necessarily the same physical structure occupied by the Frahm family.

Likewise, although historical documentation places the early Dalton Adding Machine operation at Main and Pine and Elsa's postcard marks a building in that vicinity as her father's workplace, the company was expanding and relocating operations during 1909. We have therefore avoided assigning Elsa's marked building a specific street number until additional evidence can be found.