Ferne Thomas tucks it away in her jewelry box. When Lois Hinds gets it, she stashes it for safekeeping in a dining room drawer.

Neither woman would dare stick a stamp on it and drop it in a mailbox. It’s too valuable for that.

“I’m afraid of losing it in the mail,” said Thomas, a longtime Everett resident who now lives in Vancouver, Wash.

When Thomas turns 82 on Feb. 24, her daughter Carrie Campbell is expected to drive her to Everett to visit Hinds, her dearest friend. Her gifts might be surprises, but one birthday card won’t be.

She knows what that card from Hinds will say: “From one old bag — to another.”

Since 1957, these friends who met as young women at Everett’s Delta Community Baptist Church have given each other the “old bag” birthday card year after year.

“It’s like two paper bags with funny faces,” Thomas said of the card. Like the cartoon introduction to the old “Bewitched” show, the card’s girlish faces have a distinct look of the late 1950s and early ’60s. With dishy eyelashes and short skirts, the artwork says anything but “old bag.”

Hinds remembers her inclination when she first saw it — can that really have been 51 years ago? “She gave it to me first, and I wrote back ‘Same to you.’ After that, it became kind of a game with one another,” Hinds said.

Thomas kept the card most of that first year, ensuring that their new tradition would continue. Close enough to exchange gifts, they usually handed the card back and forth. When they ran out of room on the front, they flipped it over and filled the back, noting the years next to signatures.

“It used to be a little game to find the signature, but I don’t see well enough anymore. She has to sign hers in dark ink,” Thomas said.

More than an annual joke, the card represents abiding friendship. Their bond has deepened, from busy days as young moms to years when their children were grown and they took trips together with their husbands. Their families always celebrated New Year’s together. Now, both are widows.

Hinds still lives in north Everett, where the families once lived within a mile of each other. Thomas moved to Vancouver, to be with her daughter and son-in-law. Her daughter brings her to Everett several times a year to see her friend.

“I never, ever remember a time when we were even unhappy with each other,” Thomas said. “Someone once told me he felt we must be sisters. He didn’t think friends could be that close.”

Their fondest memories are from summers at a cabin that Lois Hinds and her husband, Lawrence, had at Lake Bosworth. Lawrence Hinds worked for Simpson Lumber Co., and Hugh Thomas, Ferne’s husband, was with Great Northern Railway.

When the men worked night shifts in the summer, the women would take their children — Hinds has two and Thomas has three — for several days at the cabin. “We slept on bunk beds. And if we forgot something, we didn’t allow ourselves to come back,” Hinds said.

She remembers their husbands commenting about them being out resting at the lake while the men stayed in town and worked. “We said, ‘Look, when you guys have days off we’d be glad to have you take the children while we stay home.’ They never took us up on it,” Hinds said.

This weekend, Hinds will mark a milestone at Delta Community Baptist Church. She’s been the organist there 64 years, but recently retired from the post. The congregation will celebrate her service at 1 p.m. Saturday at the church, 2901 16th St. in Everett.

Faith has been one constant in her life. It’s fitting that her long friendship, another constant, began at the church. While Hinds played the organ, Thomas sang in the choir.

“Old bag” doesn’t suit either of them — not now, not way back when.

Jokes aside, Thomas offers an apt description: “She’s been a loyal, true friend.”

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.