Wetaskiwin District Heritage Museum Centre & City of Wetaskiwin Archives

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, we wanted to regale in some stories about this holiday. There are two different early versions of St. Valentine. The first St. Valentine is a priest in third-century Rome who would secretly marry young soldiers due to Emperor Claudius II deciding that single men made better soldiers than those who had wives and families, so he outlawed marriage for young men. The second St. Valentine is a priest that has been arrested and, while in prison, had a relationship with the jailer’s daughter. The priest wrote and signed a letter, “from your Valentine” to her; some say this relationship was due to the priest healing her form blindness. The first valentine’s cards to appear presumably as early as the 1500s, and by the 1700s, companies printing Valentine’s cards became a regular occurrence and sold to the public. Some of the most common symbols associated with Valentine’s day are Cupid, cherubs, and hearts. The museum has a poster that we believe is from 1924, advertising a ‘Valintine Carnival’ for young boys and girls on February 15^th at 7:30, where there are fancy skating and costume contests with prizes. There is a large red heart with two cherubs on each side of the heart.