"Where the Best Costs Less"

“La Fayette Memorial Park on National ‘Old Trails’ Road, Route 40 between Uniontown and Brownsville is rapidly becoming the choice of those living in S.W. Pennsylvania.”  Or, more precisely, the choice of those dying in southwest Pennsylvania.  But I digress. “Wide driveways will lead visitors past lakes, waterfalls and shaded retreats. Tombstones are prohibited, but names will live forever in imperishable bronze.”

This is certainly an odd postcard to find among the collection of Great Grandpa Phil.  He was born in this area and lived there until he and Great Grandma Lottie followed my grandmother to South Jersey. I’m sure he had occasion to visit the cemetery pictured; a quick search of surnames of the “residents” of LaFayette Memorial Park at Find A Grave shows more than a handful of my distant relatives.  Phil and Lottie aren’t buried here themselves, however; while I can’t recall the exact location, I feel certain that they were buried in their church graveyard back home in Fayette County, Pennsylvania.  In any case, I distinctly remember that they had a gravestone, which places them somewhere besides LaFayette Memorial Park.

This card is difficult to date; it’s a photochrome postcard, but with a deckled edge, a white border, a space between “La” and “Fayette” that has fallen out of fashion, and an image that one would expect to find on a linen postcard.  Judging solely from the fonts used on the back, I am going to guess early- to mid-1950s.  This is likely a design that was in use for decades, and migrated through different manufacturing techniques as times changed.  Probably they intended for visitors to the cemetery to send out status reports to other relatives who couldn’t visit personally.

True to their word, so far they have continued to provide perpetual care.