A 1908 postcard's unfinished story
Among my few dozen vintage postcards is one sent to Detroit a week before Thanksgiving 1908. It inspires thoughts about social networking via pens, paper and postage during that era B.C. [[Before Computers).
For some students and young adults back then, mail turned distant strangers into contacts. Their version of a virtual world, a Second Life, came through pen pal connections.
With a fountain pen, Rose M. Geis wrote from Syracuse, N.Y.:
Quote:
I saw your name to exchange postals. And I would like to correspondent with you.
Answer soon.
Her invitation, postmarked the morning of Nov. 21, 1908, went from Syracuse's northwest side to Robert L. Stuart on the edge of downtown Detroit at 888 Porter Street [[where the Lodge now stands).
Because Robert saved the card and because he sought pen pals, presumably through a classified-style listing in a pulp magazine or other publication, he likely replied that fall to Rose's three-sentence entreaty. Answer soon.
Whether they corresponded [[or correspondented, as Rose would say) beyond two postcards can't be known . . . but is a thread a novelist or screenwriter could weave into an imaginative narrative that brings Rose to Detroit or Bob to Syracuse.
What's not fiction is that I hold something each of them held 101 years ago. The image side shows Syracuse University, my alma mater, so I bought it at a flea market. Now I wonder how it wound up there, possibly after sitting for many decades in a Stuart family closet, trunk or attic somewhere in this area.
Sitting at a desk without a fountain pen, ink bottle or postcard stamp, I think about young Rose, young Robert and this form of one-to-one social media that left an artifact to display where we indulge a similar interest in communicating . . . connecting . . . correspondenting.
How about you -- did you or someone you know every have a pen pal? Travel back to that time and share a memory here. Answer soon.
New 'Greetings from Detroit' site
Shoo-whee, forget my tame card that we now know didn't lead to lasting romance.
Check out a lovestruck 1909 postcard -- also with an unfinished story -- that BuildingsOfDetroit just posted on the intriguing site he crafted for pieces of his collection and any we can contribute.
Go to Greetings from Detroit and scroll to the 2nd card - "Now how could I forget you?'
Then dig out your old cards to see if they have unfinished stories worth sharing. You can send a private note to BuildingsOfDetroit by clicking on his screen name in posts above. He welcomes card scans.