Let's See Some Interesting Messages

Sometimes the picture side isn't always the most interesting part of a postcard -- sometimes it's the message. I've found some interesting ones over the years. Who has something intriguing to add?

Short and sweet.

Not sure I'd describe these as "intriguing" but it sure wasn't I expected when I picked up these six UX18's.

Wow, littleriverphil, those postal cards with jury summonses are fascinating. I've been to Eureka, California, it's a fairly remote part of the world. It couldn't have been easy in 1910 to have traveled 85 miles to get there and to have to be there at ten o'clock in the morning. Looking at a map, even today, the route from Orleans to Eureka looks like a tough journey, twisting mountain roads nearly the whole way, it's hard to imagine how difficult it would have been in 1910.

The two jurors from Orleans most likely took the week to go to Eureka. The Korbel juror had it pretty easy, the Arcata & Mad River R. R. terminated in Korbel.

I posted this one in another thread a couple of years ago, but I think it belongs here. Unfortunately the stamp has been removed.

The scene of pretty girls in kimono under the cherry blossoms contrasts with the harsh reality described on the other side of the card. A lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve, stationed in Nagoya three months after the end of World War II, writes, "All is very peaceful over here, but the cities are wrecks and the people are living very hard lives."

Ages ago I picked up a handful or two of postcards being discarded by a college library which had apparently maintained a sort of geographic picture file made up of postcards.
Among the postcards I carried off was this one categorized as Mexico. First I will give the side on which the address and stamp appear. After all this is a stamp forum and we need to look at the stamp. I have not looked up the stamp, but I presume it is common.



Now our message, on the pictorial side.
Compare the date of the young man's apparent transgression, to the date of the Mexican cancel. Same day. Was it predictive, or immediately post facto? And we have to wonder what the fellow's offense was.
A few other cards in my handfuls were addressed to Mrs. Loar of Jacksonville, Illinois, or her daughter, but all seem proper for the 1900-1940 period, except this one There was a story here, but I only have this card.

During the second decade of the last century, the California State Library wanted to know how many books and anything else each school had in "their" library. I have only found three of these cards, all from Mendocino County.

I doubt that is Mr. Poucher in the photo. If anyone recognizes him as anyone famous, I'd like to know.

I wonder if Herr Rupperthal and mother made it through the war. He writes in 1915 about doing well with hope for victory..how little we know. The front of the card is the classic photo of Hindenburg.

Here's my favorite World War I message postcard from my collection. It was written in Esperanto and sent from Japan to Australia in 1914.


The Esperanto text, with the repeated use of the element mal-, is more elegant than my clumsy translation:

Chofu, 27/8/14

Dear Friend!

Thanks for your last card! It's not true that in our land only few flowers grow; maybe the journalist travelled through Japan during the winter! Our national flower is the chrysanthemum. I still haven't read "Marvelous Love" ("Mirinda Amo"n). On the contrary, I now have "marvelous hatred" ("mirindan malamon") toward the worthless person with a propensity for discord (malsxatinda malpacemulo) — the instigator of the world war. I've proposed to the eminent diplomats of England, France, Russia, and Japan, that Wilhelm should be driven off to St. Helena, or better yet, to the South Pole, after Germany is completely defeated. What do you and your compatriots think?

This I think fits the profile of this thread.





I was more than a little surprised as I researched this card a bit. Rather than me try and write about it, the three links below pretty much tell the story of this postal card. Both these men were apparently active philatelists.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial...lwood-crouch
https://www.uscs.org/society-archiv...gess-thomas/
http://www.tpo-seapost.org.uk/tpo2/...mo201804.pdf

Here's one I had forgotten about, but the invitation is fascinating. I would have loved to see this presentation, back when "wireless" radio was still virtually unknown.

This appears to be a notification form for a ships passenger arrival. I have been unable find any information on the individuals involved, specifically Parasgka or Maria Bobinska or the addressee Arnold Katz.




Wikipedia has this to say about the SS Wittekind.


USS Freedom (ID-3024) was a cargo and transport ship in the United States Navy during World War I. Originally SS Wittekind for the North German Lloyd line, the ship also served as USAT Iroquois and USAT Freedom after being seized by the United States in 1917.

SS Wittekind was built in Germany for the Bremen–New York service of the Roland Line service of North German Lloyd, and was the sister ship of SS Willehad. In March 1900 Wittekind was lengthened because her cargo capacity was found lacking. Later that same year, Wittekind was among the first transports to carry German Empire troops as part of the Eight-Nation Alliance intended to put down the Boxer Rebellion in China. In August 1914, at the start of World War I, the ship was interned at Boston in the neutral United States.

When the U.S. entered that conflict in April 1917, Wittekind was seized and turned over to the United States Shipping Board. Renamed Iroquois, the ship was chartered to the United States Army as a cargo ship after a refit, and, in 1918, was renamed Freedom. In January 1919 the ship was commissioned into the United States Navy, and carried almost 5,000 troops home from Europe before her decommissioning in September. Held in reserve for transport duty, the ship was laid up for five years before being scrapped in 1924.

Arnold Katz was a steamship broker according to the 1909 Blue Book of American Shipping. He was still at 716 Walnut in 1918 according to the the Philadelphia Maritime Exchange report of that year.716 today is the site of a gym.

If I get time later I'll take a shot at Bobinska and more on Katz. Both those addresses are easy drives from my house. It intrigues me when addresses near my home home pop up on this site across the span of so much time and space.

Thank you Aviatik for the information you have provided. I am looking forward to any further information you may come up with for Mr. Katz, and also with regard to the Bobinska's.