Category: family

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Education family Photographs Postcards Teaching Vintage Writing Prompt

1951 Split Rock Lodge Vacation: A Glorious Retreat

To: Mr. and Mrs. Harry Gilwar(?). From: Selena and Harry, 1951

Dear Harry,

Split Rock Lodge is a glorious place. You ought to try it for a vacation. How are all five(?).

Lots of love,

Selena and Henry

In 1951, the United States was embroiled in the, perhaps lesser ‘known,’ Korean War. Which, of course is an extension of the Cold War. Harry Truman was President, and the world had officially entered into the nuclear age. On March 29, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were convicted of espionage, The King and I opened on Broadway, and All About Eve won best motion picture at the Academy Awards.

In July, 4,000 whites in Cicero, Illinois attacked an apartment building because it housed a single black family, sparking the Cicero Race Riot. July also sees the release of Salinger’s A Catcher in the Rye, as well as Disney’s Alice in Wonderland.

So when Henry and Selena took their vacation to Split Rock in August of 1951 the writhing ferment of change was coming to the United States, but it was creeping slowly, and wasn’t here quite yet. At least not for people who had the privilege of going to the Poconos on vacation. For them, it was likely a peaceful retreat from the tumult of the late 40’s.

Split Rock Lodge is settled in the Poconos mountains in Pennsylvania. Built in 1941, it was opened as a vacation destination in 1946. Though the original lodge burned down in a fire in the 1970’s, it was rebuilt and remains as a vacation destination for families. However, it must have been grand in the 50’s. Brand new construction, hiking trails to explore, fresh, crisp air. It’s no wonder Henry called it a “glorious place.”

By the 1950’s most postcards transition from imparting critical family information to displaying the trappings of luxury. In a world where social media didn’t exist, how could people show off their glorious vacations to their friends? POSTCARDS! And that’s exactly what Selena and Henry are doing. Showing off. I don’t blame them, I post pictures of my vacations on social media, too.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find Mr. and Mrs. Harry Gilwar(?). I suspect it’s because I’m not entirely sure of the last name. It’s too bad, especially because it’s recent enough that I thought I’d get an obituary and maybe some pictures. Ah well, that’s the way it works sometimes.

On the back of the postcard you can see that it’s a “genuine photo” postcard. I don’t know enough about real photo postcards to know if this is a reproduction, or if it’s an actual picture of Henry. However, people did have the option of turning their pictures into postcards and sending them in the mail (sort of like our Christmas cards from Costco ahahha). I like to think that this image is our friend Henry staring at us from the past and urging us to get outdoors and try Split Rock as a vacation. I’m sure it will be glorious.

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family History Photographs Postcards Vintage writing

“My Dear Boy”: A Desperate Message from a Loving Mama

To Mr. Walter Meyers. Date Unknown

May 2: My dear boy Walter,

Well I was at the ranch and am back again after firing me. They hired another woman and I have lost out all around so I am out of work and out of money. How do you like your place?

Your loving mama

Because there’s not a postmark on this card it’s impossible to know when it was sent/delivered to Walter Meyers. My instinct tells me it’s somewhere between 1900 and 1915, though it could be into the early 1920’s. The publisher, Edward H Mitchell, was active between 1898 and 1920.

Additionally, in my experience, earlier dated postcards typically conveyed family information like illness, hardships, celebrations, or moves. However, as the ability to communicate over longer distances became easier, later dated postcards typically discuss vacations and trips. Of course, this is not always the case, but it’s something I’ve noticed.

I also tend to think that this postcard originated (and ended) in Northern California, though I suppose our “loving mama” could have been in Southern or Central California (based on the fact that she’d been on a ranch of some sort). At the turn of the 20th century, much of California was agricultural and relied on migrant workers for labor. Frankly, this is still the case. I have a feeling this mother and son lived and worked in different areas of Northern California. Especially since the postcard was printed in San Francisco.

That leads me to the message and picture of the card itself. The desolation of a dark, lonely lake only illuminated by a high moon seems to fit the desperate message of the card: “I am out of work and out of money”. Yet, something about the card makes me uncomfortable, and I can’t place why. Is it simply because the mother is in need. Is the reverberation of her fear for the future imbedded into the fading pencil marks? Or is it something else?

Our loving mama doesn’t outright as her son for money, but she makes it clear she has none. She ends the message with a question of how he likes “his place.” She’s likely referring to his job, here. Is she trying to get hired? Is she reaching out to her child only as an act of self preservation? My mind reels with questions. All parent-child relationships are complicated, but still I can’t help wondering how close these two were, and whether her son was happy or disappointed to hear from her. The overall message itself feels…cold. Desperate, yes, but also seems to lack true affection.

Perhaps I’m being unfair. In fact, I’m probably being unfair. Especially since without a date and place it’s difficult to search for Walter or the “C/O John Vaugh”. I hope that our loving mama got her job and money situation sorted, and I do hope that she and her son were able to have a sweet reunion. How and why this card was kept, we won’t ever know. But, now it exists as a testament to the hardships of life and family.

Front of Postcard

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Education family History Photographs Postcards Vintage Writing Prompt

1941 Postcard from Arnie and Fred to Mrs. G.R. Turner: A Relic of Love

To Mrs. G.R. Turner, From Arnie, Fred (?). 1941

Dear Grandma T.

We are having a fine trip. Visited Purdue yesterday and Indiana University. Saw Dick for a few minutes. These gardens are very beautiful. This is just 1 part.

With love,

Arnie, Fred(?)

I didn’t mean to choose two postcards in a row that corresponded with the escalation of World War II, but here we are. By September of 1941, the United States was months away from entering the war. We were embroiled in the Battle of the Atlantic, and FDR had essentially declared a naval war against Germany and Italy.

With war building, I often wonder if the world felt off kilter, and time together was shadowed with the prospect of destruction. Or, did everyday life continue with the hopes that Americans would remain unscathed? I’m sure it must have been a little of both, but with war coming, Arnie and Fred*, and their family, maintained a sense of normalcy by visiting colleges.

I find many things about this postcard appealing. The curving letters and even script, the thicker parts of letters where the ink bled a little longer. However, what’s precious about this postcard is the deep bond between grandma and grandchildren. Not only did Grandma T’s grandchildren think to drop her a line, they likely took time picking out a postcard to send her. It meant enough to Grandma T that it’s managed to survive the last 83 years. This is one reason postcards feel so amazing to me. They are often relics of love.

As an aside, Purdue and Indiana University are not close to the Missouri Botanical Gardens, nor are they very close to each other. The family must have been on a road trip through the midwest, perhaps with the intention of visiting various colleges and landmarks along the way. It makes me wonder if the grandchildren sent Grandma T more postcards, and if any of those survived.

*very unclear on the names. Checked with four different people and each person had a different response to the names. Feel free to chime in.

Front of Postcard: Missouri Botanical Gardens

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family History Postcards Teaching Vintage Writing Prompt

Life of a Teacher in 1919: Hazel Truitt’s Loneliness and Connection

1919: To Miss Ruth Butler, From Hazel Truitt

Monte Vista, Colo.

Sept. 24, 1919

Here I am in the wild west. It is pretty cold here. I have a nice little school of nine scholars. Am not very busy. Hope you are getting well fast. Don’t forget to look at that card “keep smiling”. I think of you often. Write to me.

Your Friend

Hazel Truitt

R20#2 Monte Vista Colo.

By September of 1919 the world was no longer at war, yet the war’s effects were far reaching — especially in the United States. Soldiers returning home from WWI meant an influx of working age men streaming back into cities. This combined with the Great Migration, or the movement of Black men and women from the South towards the North for both opportunities and as a way to escape Jim Crow laws.

The confluence meant a competition of jobs that intensified and erupted into racial violence that was later dubbed the “Red Summer“. Further South, the Axeman of New Orleans had taken his second to last victim, labor strikes were erupting around the country, along with the first Red Scare, which was a great fear of far left movements. The 19th Amendment – which gave women the right to vote, was in the process of ratification, and finally the 18th Amendment, or Prohibition, was months away from taking effect.

This is the context in which Hazel Truitt wrote to her friend Ruth. Monte Vista, Colorado, was a typical western town (or as Hazel said, the Wild West. It sits in the southern part of the state, and in 1919 received it’s first library.

As a school teacher in 1919, it was likely that Hazel boarded with a family, or perhaps another teacher. She would have been paid a pittance, as part of her payment was a room (and some board). Her nine “scholars” would have ranged in age from 5 to possibly 20, and she would have instructed them in one room.

Being in a new city, and a rural one at that, was probably lonely for Hazel, and I think we can see that loneliness creep in to her writing. She makes sure to tell Ruth that she “thinks of her often” and also to “keep smiling.” Perhaps a move to the “wild west” screamed adventure and opportunity, but was a much harsher reality.

Unfortunately I was able to find nothing on Hazel or Ruth. I assume they both married, and I hope they had the chance to reunite at some point in their lifetimes.

As a teacher myself, I feel a kinship with Hazel and hope she found joy in her nine scholars.

Front of postcard

Colorado

This nugget of gold

With Columbine blue

From the sunshine state

I send to you

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family Flash Fiction Haiku parenting Poems Poetry writing

Mornings

Whispering tissue

Wonderment strewn on their face

Echoes of childhood

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family Flash Fiction Haiku Poems Poetry Work In Progress writing

Dreaming

Hand-stitched quilts and faded letters lay in the dusty boxes of my attic. The yellowed tape flakes when pulled open.

Fragmented memories flutter in the dust motes and cloud my mind like tangled wildflowers.

Your long fingers. Your knitting needle. Dried lavender. Rose gardens bereft with aphids.

The plastic smell of your favorite lawn chair.

Hair curlers and embroidered handkerchiefs.

You’re lost in time and space, but I have your nose and my daughter has your boisterous laugh, so somehow we found you, too.

And the blanket smells like lavender.

And your “L’s” look like mine.

Last night I talked to you in a dream.

Tonight your blanket lays on my bed because you were worried I was cold.

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family Poems Poetry Uncategorized

41

Like a crisp breeze in the air, I sense my body aging.

The gentle creaking of limbs.

The rustling of brittle hair.

The deepening lines on an ever tiring face.

The young sun still shines bright, but she’s growing weary of her bright glow.

And, though she has a few summers left of glorious youth.

Autumn approaches.

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family parenting Poems Poetry

40 under 40

I woke up today and realized that I will never be a 40 under 40.

By 25 I was knee deep in diapers, raising three kids under three.

My ex, by the way, was living with another woman, having left me to lead the fun and fancy free life of a 20 something male who realized at an early age that he can make his own way off the emotional and physical labor of women he’s discarded.

By 30 I was going back to school to finish an undergraduate degree I’d started at 18.

By 35 I was in grad school where the rest of my cohorts were a decade younger, and none with children. That’s where I was told I couldn’t use commas.

By 37 I had two degrees. I also obtained my first job that broke the poverty barrier.

Now, I’m 41 and I’ve just begun to create a retirement account. My kids are grown or almost grown.

I wanted to be a writer, an author of books that will remain after my death, but increasingly time slips away from me.

I wanted to be a professor, a reader, an academic whose job was to think. But my ex stole that from me.

I have achieved so much. I understand this.

But I will never be a 40 under 40. And that is a hard pill for the dreamer within me to swallow.

Although.

I can’t swallow pills anyway (true story).

So I guess there’s still time for dreaming.

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Current Events family Poems Poetry Uncategorized

Self-Care

In the spiraling modernity of a wired and connected world the influencers peer out of their square boxes. Against a pink or beige or golden background, they all share the same message.

Self-care. A modern woman practices a self-care routine.

The influencer will preach with the utmost sincerity. She is a trend setting prophet, and her bible is whatever pastel colored bottle has paid enough to grace her screen today.

The modern woman, her hair in a bun that’s perched atop her head, or in a day old sweatshirt that smells faintly of infant piss or vomit (or both) nods.

Self-care. She must find herself a self care routine.

But time is fleeting. How can one practice self care in the midst of a thousand daily chores that triple the minute one gets missed? Especially if the modern woman is expected to work, cook, clean, and perfectly parent at every god-damn minute of every single day.

Modernity is a dream

A beautiful one, sold in 10 second chunks of neutral colored smiles.

In reality, it’s profits for clicks. The capitalization of consumption.

And yet, still we scroll.

For self-care purposes, of course.

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Current Events family Poems Poetry

Changeling

My dear,

You were never meant to pick up the pieces of a life cut too short.

It is the cruelty of existence that requires you to soldier on. It is not God’s will, it is not fate. It is…happenstance. And you have met it with wide eyed courage.

You must feel forgotten. Overlooked and overwhelmed. Angry at the world or God or the Universe for leaving you behind.

Guilty for your anger. Guilty for your rage. Guilty for all the roiling emotions that ebb and flow with the circadian rhythm of the day.

Because you’re the one who stayed.

My dear, I see you. I see your youth. I see your bright soul alight with childish wonder.

I see how it’s dimmed now that you can no longer explore the vast expanse of this incandescent world with the man you love.

You’re a changeling. Alone in the bizarre shadow called Earth now stripped of light.

But please remember…

Grief is not attached to morality.

Grief simply is.

You will feel knives of anger, shards of hatred, and moments of spite. You will feel sparks of joy, bubbles of love, and waves of compassion. And all this will barrage you in staccato rhymes of confusion.

Because you were left behind.

But my dear, you are not forgotten. Though it may seem that way.

You were left behind. But we are by your side.