Canada Covers - Sanitarium Ont

Just back from Unipex with a bunch of treasures. Here's the first I'm going to bore you with. And this one is especially for you Bujutsu!
A pair of Admiral covers from 1927, days apart, both to the same recipient. What caught my attention was the cancel from Sanitarium Ontario. Never heard of it!



The return addresses on the back, from two different people, are both Gage Building, Gravenhurst, Muskoka.
The only thing I could think of was the Muskoka Hospital for Consumptives, from which we've seen many charity labels on this forum. I asked one of the dealers, and sure enough, looking it up in a little book he found that yes, starting in 1910 the hospital had its own post office cancel.
Isn't that CRAZY???

Very Nice! Looks like Mrs A Saurson was a popular addressee.... staff? resident? guardian? Looks like outgoing mail, so two letters from the sanitarium to Ms Saurson?

here's a review of a book about a young teacher named Lilly Samson, who arrived at the Muskoka Hospital in 1924, I think as a patient. I found her name by googling the address and last name and came up with a 1921 school list which included Lilly.

I wonder if Mrs. A Samson is Lilly's mother, and the other patients started writing to her? The names on the back of these envelopes are Linea Johanson and P. Booth.

http://www.muskokabooks.ca/reviews/...onsumed.html

jamesw funny you post this yesterday and then today on your local Soo Today website a story about the post office that the letters most likely went through.
For your reading enjoyment:

https://www.sootoday.com/columns/re...ffice-188476

What a pretty little post office, thanks for posting that Northern0.
But I think by the time my envelopes got to the Soo, that was being used as a government office. The article reads that it was a PO until the early 1920s, whereas by covers were postmarked in 1927. They might have ended up in some new spiffier office!

Nice finds James

Dianne

Hi Dianne! Been a while.

On the subject of the Muskoka Sanitarium Post Office, the link below includes the following paragraph:




http://muskokapost.tripod.com/sanitari.htm

I might go to the Sault Ste. Marie library tomorrow to do some postal history research. I'll look Mrs. Samson up on Ancestry.ca. Here's a picture of 60 Cathcart St. from Google Maps:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@46.5202...6656!6m1!1e1

I love these classic old brick Soo homes...

Didn't make it to the Soo library, but a cursory glance through the city's 1927 directory online identifies an Astrid Samson living at 60 Cathcart St. presumably with her parents and brother, working as a stenographer for R H Carney and Son.

Great idea jim. Taking your lead, I found a Soo city directory (not the same as the one you found I don't think) which lists by street, and found an Albin Samson listed at 60 Cathcart St.
It didn't occur to me that in 1927 the wife of the house would use her husbands initial, hence the Mrs. A Samson. Who knows what her first name actually was.


Followup - found the directory you used, and Mrs Samson was Ida.

How interesting they had these various directories printed - there is a business version too.
I guess it's no different from today where you can search on a web site by name, business or address.

So this makes me wonder about my earlier discovery of Lilly Samson being at Muskoka during that time, and if she is the connection to Ida Samson of the Soo. Is she not listed in the director because she no longer lives at home? Perhaps she is a niece and Aunt Ida was staying in touch with her and her cohorts at the Hospital?
A mystery indeed!

Well, another afterthought.
Lilly Samson entered the Muskoka Hospital in 1924. We've been looking at the Soo directories for 1927, when these letters were mailed. So I just checked the 1923 Soo directory, the year before Lilly went in, and sure enough, there she is listed at 60 Cathcart, along with two brothers (the second brother is listed separately below the Samson family in the 1927 book).
But then, where did Astrid come from? My guess is that in 1923 she was probably still a minor and not listed, as all the others mentioned in the directories have vocations, and therefore must be of age.
Research, research, research!
Thanks jjmclell!

Ahh, well done! Didn't think to check back a few years to see if Lilly was living there. After looking at the old directories to try and figure out who Mrs. A. Samson was, I started poring over them trying to figure out where some of the old Soo post offices used to be. There were at least 10 offices aside from the main one in the area that now makes up the Soo and very little record of any of them. I think I've nailed one down and will post a new thread on it. Another great research project :)

Looks like James has material for a exhibit at a local stamp show.....

The one thing that still remains a mystery on this one is who was sending Astrid these letters from the Sanitarium...obviously two different people sent them. Can't possibly think of how we'd determine that.

Actually, what might be amazing is finding the book "A Life Consumed" which is apparently somewhat of a compilation of the letters Lilly wrote during her stay at the Sanitarium. Maybe there's a chance these covers could be aligned to actual letters she wrote, given the fact we have time stamps on the covers. That would be pretty crazy...