Friday Funny: A quiet, grave time

I was recently looking through my small collection of antique post cards, and came across this gem. It is a comic post card depicting a man smoking a pipe and pouring himself a drink while sitting atop the headstone which presumably belonged to his wife. The stone reads:

JANE ANN

DEAR WIFE

OF

JOHN HENPECK

and the caption reads “A quiet, grave time, at last!” At the top, someone has penned in the initials J.W.

On the reverse is a one cent stamp, with a post mark dated 1 Aug 1908 at 9 a.m. in Vancouver, Washington. The card is addressed to Mr. P. Gusted (or perhaps it is Lusted?), Portland, Oregon, and appears to have the memo that it is in care of “W. V. tel. Co.” The correspondence reads,

Hello Nephew,

Will be over Sun. morning if everything is Ho-K.

and it is signed either “your Uncy. Geo.” or “your Uncy. Leo.”

A quick Ancestry search through Portland city directories revealed no P. Gusted or P. Lusted, although there were others of both those surnames. I was reluctant to attempt more in-depth research, so I can currently shed no light on the recipient of this card. The sender is even more mysterious, as he signed only his first name. As for the initials “J. W.” on the front of the card—well, I have no idea what those mean.