Thursday, October 24, 2013

Postcard Project: 1930s, Part 7

As always, all grammatical/spelling mistakes copied verbatim.

June 24, 1938
Addressed to Grandma & Grandpa

"Dear [redacted], Taking a trip with five other girls & it certainly has been wonderful so far. Visited 'Will Rogers Ranch' while driving thru Okla. also saw plenty of cowboys, one of them took us to one of the ranches here in Texas this morning. The weather plenty warm 104 but at nite it gets so cool you have to have [?] cover. Saw acres of wheat, corn which [illegible] is 5 ft high and fields of cotton wish I could tell you more. Tomorrow we are going to visit Mexico. Love Mary."

While I think a trip with one's girlfriends sounds fun, six women crammed into a car (or hopefully two?) during a Texas summer in the 1930s - with no AC & presumably terrible roads - sounds absolutely horrific. Glad Mary had a good time anyway.

July 7, 1938
Addressed to Grandma

"Hello [redacted] - Having a swell time here - I'm going down the cave now. Peg."

The back of the card indicates that this is the Rainbow Room of Wonderland Cave, three miles west of Cave City, Kentucky. I can't find Wonderland Cave on the map, but Mammoth Cave appears to be just west of Cave City, Kentucky. I'm thinking maybe Wonderland Cave had a name change some time after 1938. My mom took us to Mammoth Cave when we were kids. It was pretty cool.

July 23, 1938
Addressed to Grandma & Grandpa.

"Hello Folks. Enjoying the country up here very much. This is the last Post Office in Michigan. Love, Mary & Don."

Copper Harbor appears to be at the very tippy tip of the "finger" of the Upper Peninsula that juts out into Lake Superior, so I don't think Mary was exaggerating when she calls it the last post office in Michigan. This is the last card in the collection from Mary.

August 8, 1938
Addressed to Grandma.

"Hi [redacted]: Here I am in Detroit doing as the Detroiters do. Hope your not melting away at the office. Marie."

I was honestly unaware that Grandma continued to work after she married Grandpa. When I thought about it, though, it kind of made sense. My uncle wouldn't be born for another couple of years, so why not work? I wonder what she did though, if she continued to be a telephone operator, as she was when she lived in Virginia.

November 8, 1938
Addressed to Grandma & Grandpa

"HELLO PEOPLE - AT LEAST WE DO NOT FEEL LIKE THE ROCK. JUST LOOK AT US. [names redacted]."

This is another card they sent to themselves. It made me laugh. Obviously, they weren't "starving" while they were on vacation. I always heard that my grandpa had a good sense of humor, and I can see it shining through in his writings (it's his handwriting on this card).

2 comments:

Patricia said...

I was interested to see if the church was still there and look!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_United_Methodist_Church_(Detroit,_Michigan)

It is! And according to the Wikipedia entry your postcard came only 2 years after the church was remodeled because the road was widened.

balyien said...

Thanks, that's actually very interesting. It's amazing that it looks pretty much the same!