Author Archives: Bob Lawrence

The writing is all in pencil.  The postmark is double stamped and blurry.  The interesting thing is that the card, in the upper left, is dated “Feb. 2, 1912”, but the postmark shows it was mailed on January (something) 1912.
Reading on: “Hurry answer soon  Hello Hazel how are you by this time I am just fine and having a fine old time tell Bess to send me a card will be home in next month”  The author was not big on punctuation.

Mailed to Miss Hazel Lessley, Arcadia, Tenn. Arcadia, formerly known as Reedy Creek Settlement, is one of the earliest clumps of humanity along Bloomingdale Road.  We always used to call it Bloomingdale Pike (indicating at some time in the past it was a private road…you had to pay to have the pike across the road lifted so you could get through).

Anyway, there are 36 men, women and children all lined up across the front.  The photo was maybe taken in April or May, since the people aren’t wearing winter clothes and there’s some sign, perhaps a circus sign, in the show window to the left advertising an upcoming May 30 performance.

As is common with cards of this vintage, there’s no publisher name shown.  There may be an inventory number or other information under the stamp, but I’m not even going to try to steam it off.