“Bright sunshine, blue sky, rolling surf, and beautiful sand make Sea Isle City Beaches popular for families.”  That was the case for the family of my childhood friend, Mike Smith, who had moved from New Jersey to Wallingford, Connecticut, oh, must have been around 1979.  We kept in touch for a few years (and I can still recite what was then his address, including the ZIP code) but, being young, eventually concentrated our attentions solely on the friends in our immediate spheres.

Unfortunately, Mike’s family has apparently moved from the address they had back in 1982 and, of course, googling “Mike Smith” is an exercise in futility.  Mike, if you’re out there, stop by and say hi.

“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.

“A University of North Carolina student notices a new creation as he walks past the snow-covered Old Well on the UNC campus.”  Well — if you’ll pardon the pun — it was kinda hard to miss.

This is an “official” Postcrossing card from my friend Britt, who was apparently thinking of sending me a card anyway when she drew my name out of the hat.  She writes: “This is a card from the school I hopefully will be attending in the fall. Fingers crossed.”  Naturally, I immediately sent her a good luck “V for Victory” card, which I did not have the foresight to scan before dropping it in the mailbox.  So it goes.

This white-border card with its deckled edge bears no description of any kind on the back. The stampbox, asking for one cent postage, indicates that it was published prior to 1952, but I suspect it is much older — possibly dating as far back as the late ’30s. Published by the Asheville Post Card Company.

Today on a whim, I stopped by an antique shop on my lunch break, one that I’ve driven by dozens of times in the course of my work. I scored what appears to be four separate collections of cards. Although the cards were being sold individually for $2 or $3, I was able to make a deal and walked off with every postcard the man had for about 12 cents each.

The first collection was a small group of humorous linen postcards from the 1930s, inside of a brown album with the legend “Post-Cards” on the front. The album appears to be contemporary with the cards and was sold to the original owner (according to a sticker inside the front cover) by E.H. Ketchum Co., Stationers, 24 Main Street, Jamestown, NY. There were several duplicates, which will wind up on eBay; I’ll be posting each card to the site around the same time that I post the duplicates on eBay.

The second collection was in a 1950s-era white photo album, containing mostly linen postcards from the late 40s, with some early chrome postcards from the 50s and 60s. About 15-20% of them were addressed to Miss Kay Anthony of Spartanburg, SC; it appears that she had a few regular correspondents, and that their goal was to exchange postcards for their collections. Kay had almost 200 postcards in her album.

The third collection was in a 1970s-era brown photo album, and contained mostly vintage chromes, but with several early white-border cards and linens, along with a lot of deckled Continental-sized cards from the 70s. The album was designed to hold 304 photos and was full of that number of cards. In addition, in pockets on the inside front and back covers, was a lot of ephemera: souvenir shop pictures of local sights, ridiculously oversized souvenir postcards, and the like.

Last but not least, the fourth collection was a cardboard box with just over 500 cards, another very good mix, but again mostly vintage and modern chromes. It also contained a couple dozen souvenir books. A great many of the cards were written by someone called “Wart” from places across the US, sent back to a couple in Stone Mountain, GA (probably Mom and Dad). In future posts I will refer to cards from this box as the Wart Collection; while the phrase itself sounds disgusting, it’s short and to the point. Wart was kind enough to have purchased a few duplicate postcards here and there as well, mostly of things like aircraft from the Smithsonian.

In other words, my collection has almost doubled overnight, but I’m still sticking with my plan to post an average of a postcard a day (well, maybe three or four on weekends). I don’t expect to start posting any cards from these new collections for at least a couple of weeks — not until I figure out what I have.

Oh, lest I forget, in today’s mail, there was another batch of 102 cards from Florida, mostly linens with the odd white-border or vintage chrome. I bought these on a whim on eBay because these cards remind my wife of her childhood there.

I hope you’ll enjoy seeing all these cards; I’m looking forward to posting them.

Twenty-six units (unités), air conditioned (climatisé), licensed TV (licencié), and a dining room (salle à manger), it’s no wonder that my grandparents couldn’t resist staying here. Judging from the notes on the back, Grandma picked up this deckled card at the motel and used it to calculate mileage on their trip (presumably) to the Montreal Expo, year undetermined. (I remember seeing some ancient souvenirs as a child, so it must be so.)

It looks like she was backtracking, as the stop at the motel was last on her list. There are a number of confusing things about her entries:

• For August 7, she writes “M.H. to Longueuil (Quebec), 330″, which is just outside of Montreal. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing that’s 330 miles away that would have been of interest. At first I thought she might have meant “my house”, but her house in South Jersey was about 450 miles away — and it doesn’t make sense that my grandfather would drive 120 miles and then stop for the day. They might have stopped to visit some of his relatives in North Jersey, but they would still have been more than 330 miles from Longueuil — and I can’t think of anyone whose initials were M.H., nor do I see any towns on the map that might fit.
• On August 8, they were at the Expo.
• For August 9, she writes, “To Quebec, 174″. Odd, considering that they were already in Quebec. Perhaps sightseeing?
• At last, they arrive in Drummondville on the 10th, some 159 miles later. Not sure what was worth seeing here.

Unfortunately, it’s a mystery without a solution, as neither of them are around to ask.

This may look like a real photo postcard, but it’s actually a black-and-white photochrome postcard with a deckled edge. It was published by Dexter Press of Pearl River, New York.

Owens-Illinois was a key place in my family’s history. This from the obituary of my grandmother, Mildred Cossaboon, who passed away on 27 March 2008:

She was the daughter of the late Philip Nelson Smith and the late Charlotte Blanch (nee Arison) Smith. Born in Flatwoods, Fayette County, Pa., on June 30, 1923, she attended grade school in Franklin Township, Pa., and graduated from Dunbar High School, in 1942. Mrs. Cossaboon came, as did many others, to work at the Owens-Illinois Glass Company, in 1943.

It was there that she met my grandfather, a glassblower, and the rest is history.

Her cousin, John Hodinka (“Sonny”), also came to work there after his service with the 82nd Airborne Division. He’s a great man who is very proud of his service (and rightfully so), and would love to jump out of a perfectly good airplane even today.

Not surprisingly, he’s enamored with the Band of Brothers miniseries. He told me that he was watching the interviews and that one of the members of Easy Company was talking about how he went to work for Owens-Illinois in Bridgeton. (That man was Carwood Lipton, played in the movie by Donnie Wahlberg.) Sonny told me with surprise, “I worked with that son-of-a-bitch for five years and he never said a word.”