Memorial Day Parade, Hazel Park, MI, 1966

Divided back postcard, unused, 1966. Photo by:  Southeastern Michigan Business & Professional Women Association. Series or number 12842-C. Publisher:  L. Goldberg & L. Wilson, Hazel Park, Michigan. Printer:  Dexter Press, Inc., West Nyack, New York.

Price:  $5.00

“1st Prize Float, Memorial Day Parade. May 29, 1966. Hazel Park, Michigan.”

That’s a helicopter represented in this flower-covered float, honoring the “Fighting Soldiers From The Sky.” Note the rotor blades that are blending in with the crowd.

Santa In An Airplane

Old photo, white border. Circa 1920s to 1930s.

Price:  $4.00

We’re late getting to the Christmas posts this year…..Here’s the first, a subtle one, maybe taken in Southern California, due to the palm trees in the background. That is Santa in the monoplane with propeller and open cockpit, though you have to click to enlarge the photo to see him. Note the teddy bear attached just on the body of the aircraft, near the wing, and the draping tinsel. And maybe someone can tell us (or is it obvious?) Was this aircraft really used to fly or was it built for the parade? Probably the latter.

Ezra Meeker’s Ox Team, 1910

Divided back, used postcard. Postmarked July 9, 1915 from Oakland, California. Publisher:  Ezra Meeker, Seattle, Washington. Number or series: A-14670.

Price:  $5.00

“This view represents a snap shot of the team in motion at the head of the Industrial Parade, Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 5th, 1910.”

Ezra Meeker (1830 – 1928) was a pioneer from Iowa, who traveled the Oregon Trail, and who worked later to memorialize it. He was also an author, served as Puyallup, Washington’s first mayor and its first postmaster, was one time known as the “Hop King of the World” and was also the publisher of this postcard.

Addressed to:   “Miss Ella Ellison, 1415 – G St., Sacramento, Calif.”

“Dear Ella, Went to the Fair to-day. Am coming home Sun. and going away Tues. (write) Muriel.”

Straight and to the point, the comings and goings of Ella’s friend, Muriel in July 1915. Love the order to “(write)”. This is one of many in the Alice Ellison Collection.

Source:  Ezra Meeker. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Meeker (accessed November 12, 2017).

Walnut Festival Parade

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Vintage parade photo, 1950s, Walnut Festival.

Price:  $10.00            Size:  5 x 3 and 1/2″

Circa 1950s, of the Walnut Festival Parade, showing a view of horses, tacked up in silver finery, and their riders (does the guy in the foreground remind you of Teddy Roosevelt?) in hats and typical fifties-era cowboy shirts, on parade before an audience lined up on both sides of the street. The most logical guess for location would be Walnut Creek, California. We’re not finding city directories or old phone books online for this time-frame for Walnut Creek, so perhaps the answer lies in a local library. (A day trip on the horizon?) One of the most helpful clues to identify the city would be the restaurant on the left. You can see a sign showing “Chick’s Eat”  above the  “….Famous Fried Chicken”  sign. (Check out the guy perched up there, who secured a nice spot for himself to watch the parade.) We can also make out a Chevron logo on the other side of the street (one such sign recently sold for $1800.00.)  In the background, the banner strung across the road reads,  “Walnut Festival.”

Oneidas And Onondagas Parade Float

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Old photo, circa 1908 – 1912.

Price:  $15.00       Size:  About 4 and 1/8 x 3 and 1/8″

The occasion for this parade is unknown, possibly the 4th of July, or Memorial Day. The location is also unknown, though the most likely guess for a state would be New York , but we can date this old photo by the number of stars on the two U. S. flags that are draped, along with the bunting, from the building in the background. The flags show 46 stars:  Oklahoma was the 46th state and admitted to the Union on November 16, 1907 and New Mexico was the 47th, admitted on January 6, 1912. Officially, the United States did not adopt a new flag until the following 4th of July, however, flags were sometimes fashioned and flown or displayed ahead of the official date.

The central subject of the photo is a float by or to honor the Oneida and Onondaga Indians, members of the Iroquois Confederacy or Six Nations (Originally the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca with the Tuscarora having joined in the year 1722.) That appears to be a painting on canvas, perhaps of land or rocks, at the center of the circle of some of the clan figures:  the deer, wolf, bear, beaver, and is that a turtle in the front about to slip into the “water?” Members of the Oneida and Onondaga stand in traditional dress under the horseshoe shape banner, with the sun’s rays? shooting from the top and sides. Behind are a tepee, a figure of an Indian and a portion of a tree. It looks like a team of donkeys pull the float.

Other details:  Notice how almost everyone in the well-turned out crowd is wearing a hat (just true to the era.) Other things to pick out are the electric lights strung on both sides of the street, at least six old street lamps, and that many in the crowd are holding a piece of paper, maybe that’s an advertisement or handout for who was who in the parade.

Sources:  The 46 Star Flag. usflag.org. (accessed June 2, 2016).

47 Star Flag – unofficial – (U.S.) FOTW Flags of the World. (accessed June 2, 2016).

Iroquois Confederacy. October 19, 2015 (last updated). Encyclopaedia Britannica. (accessed June 2, 2016).

Additional reading:

Haudenosaunee Confederacy

Stein 4th Of July Float

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Undivided back, Real Photo Postcard. Circa 1902 – 1906.

Price:  $20.00

“Dear Uncle Walter, Your postals I received. Many thanks for same but sorry to say I lost the postal card Saturday of you. send me one again. be so kind and send Saturday again. This is our float for the 4 of July. I am the one with the head …?… turned …you[?]with love to you …?…I [?] …?…I will go to stay with Grandpa next month. Myrtle Stein”

Card addressed to:  “Mr. Walter Stein, New York City, N. Y., #104 West 100th Str.”

RPPC gem

This is a gem of a postcard from probably 1902 – 1906:   A Real Photo Postcard, from the undivided back era, showing a photo, taken during a Fourth of July parade, of the Stein family’s horse or mule-drawn float. There are lots of details to try to pick out here. We can see the Stein name on the side of the float, though the word after Stein is hard to read. You’ll notice what appear to be street signs just behind the tropical looking plant. The signs seem off-kilter so maybe they were put up for the parade. And is the plant part of the float? It’s hard to tell. One of the signs looks like it says “First National.”  Here is a cropped but not resized photo. You should be able to click twice on the image to get the best view.

Stein Float Photo

Man or bear?

Continuing on with some of the other details, there’s a lady wearing a large hat, and a gentleman with a white goatee. There are several different hat styles the men are wearing. And that looks like part of a windmill behind the wooden utility pole. There’s the star-spangled banner and oh that beautiful iron railing that the banner hangs from! On the float the man in the front wears a funny hat, and there are three girls at the back, one of whom is Myrtle, probably the one on our right, based upon what she says in her note. And what are we looking at just to the right of the man? To me it looks like a fake bear standing up, with his head looking upward and his left arm reaching up or holding onto the vertical support, and a chain or rope around his waist. My husband thinks it’s a guy in a fur coat with a belt and wearing a hat. (This is always so amusing, to wonder if what you think you see is really what you see, and if not how far off were you? You can picture yourself doing that quick heel of the hand to the forehead gesture, saying, “Ahhhh, of course, I see it now, it’s….” as you are cracking up laughing.) Come to think of it, this would be hot weather so it seems doubtful someone would be wearing a fur coat…

Railway Mail Service

Although the card is postally used, the postmark did not get fully stamped, unfortunately. What we can read of the postmark is “.& El Paso. R”  and just below that  “Tr. 9.”  (Train 9? Trolley 9?) To the right of that is a mark that should have read “RMS” which stands for Railway Mail Service and means that this postcard was processed in a mobile post office, such as a railway, or streetcar. The postal workers would have worked in a separate mail car attached to the train or on a trolley where half of the car would be for passengers and half for mail. The railway postal clerk job was dangerous, involving the possibility of train wrecks, falls, fires, robberies and derailments.

A Mystery

The addressee, Walter Stein, was not found at this address on the 1905 New York State Census or the 1900 and 1910 Federal Census for Manhattan. There are multiple entries for Myrtle Stein in various locations but no confirmation was found for this postcard. As for railway companies or lines there are at least seven that end in “& El Paso” that I’m finding in a quick search so this avenue of research is also proving to be difficult…Okay, so we have another for the Mystery category, but still, this is a great postcard. And one more note:  At first glance the photo for this postcard looks like it was glued on to the card, as there’s sort of an optical illusion effect happening on the right. But it would have been cropped and taken somewhere to have it made into a postcard, so it’s actually all one flat surface.

Source:  Smithsonian, National Postal Museum. Web. 4 Jul 2014. [http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibits/2c1_railwaymail.html]