To: Mr. Colby Reed. From: Robert Hensley, 1927
Dear Colby –
I am feeling fine and having a good time swimming. How would you like to take a dip with me.
Yours Truly,
Robert Hensley
Another postcard from the Roaring Twenties! I must be feeling the vibe of flappers and speakeasies! And, honestly, 1927 was a bit of a wild year. Actress Mae West was sentenced to 10 days in jail for her play titled “sex” because she “corrupted the morals of youth.” The Supreme Court decided the case Buck v. Bell which allowed for the compulsory sterilization of people with intellectual disabilities. I hate to tell you that this precedent hasn’t been specifically overturned, though it fell out of use in 1942 after Skinner vs. Oklahoma. In other news, the last Ford Model T is produced (later replaced with the Model A) and the Jazz Singer opened to great success; the beginning of the end for silent films.
There is a lot that is interesting to me about this card. One of the main points of interest is that I have two of the exact same cards (“A Rough Day on Lake Michigan”) postmarked 30 years apart. I decided to post this one today, and I’ll do the second one tomorrow. Sort of a fun trek through time to see that, when it comes to vacations, not much changes.
And so Robert Hensley found himself on Lake Michigan and decided to write to his friend, Colby Reed. Unfortunately, even though I have Robert’s full name, I couldn’t be positive I found him in the records. As is often the case with postcards, the people who wrote them are obscured by the card itself. Colby knew Robert, did not need an address, or probably even a last name. Thus, the act of recording a message and sending it to a friend becomes an act of erasure when it comes to family searches.
Colby, however, was much easier. With the city and state, I found him quickly. Colby P. Reed was born October 25 of 1909. At the time of this postcard, he was about 17 years old. Which honestly tracks, because the handwriting on the card is stilted and juvenile. It’s clearly two friends writing to each other, and I’d assume Robert is roughly the same age as Colby.
In 1923, Colby’s father died at the age of 56. His mother remarried that same year. Still, Colby would have been about 14 when this happened, and must have impacted him significantly. In 1938, Colby married Jean Cordelia McConoughey. What’s interesting is that there aren’t any draft records for WWII attached to his profile. This doesn’t mean that he didn’t register for the draft — at 33 he would have had to — but it is a gap in the records that makes my historian spidey senses tingle. Was there a medical ailment that made him unfit for service? In the census of 1940, he was working as a shop foreman, so I can’t imagine that he had a job that would prevent him from registering. I’m sure the record just hasn’t been attached yet, but it does make me wonder more about him.
Colby had one child, Ardis, and sadly outlived her. She passed away in 1999 to his 2000.
Since I couldn’t find any mention of Robert in Colby’s family line, I’m guessing they were school chums. Close enough for a 17 year old to hold on to a postcard for nearly 100 years.
If that’s not friendship, I don’t know what is.
Front of Postcard: “A rough Day on Lake Michigan”
Hipstory 