Fishing From Pier In Lake Michigan

Divided back postcard, postmarked August 18, 1911, Chicago, Illinois. Number or series 575.

Price:  $6.00

Imagine today, fishing off a pier attired in a suit coat and bowler hat! Pretty cool. It’s t-shirts and baseball caps now, though. But it’s a nice card from an unknown publisher. And it may have been one of the type where the original image was a photo that appeared in a newspaper, that subsequently got tinted and made into postcards. Funny that you can read some letters on the folded newspaper that is sticking out of the jacket pocket of the young gent on the left. Wonder if that was something the postcard producer did, and I’m thinking yes, because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to tell what it was supposed to be. (This is like “…inside the mind of…circa 1911”  type of thing. But not necessarily an idle thought since we know from prior research that photo images were often altered for postcard use.)

Addressed to:   “Miss Lela Hartman. 141 Hancock St. Newark, Ohio.”

The sender writes:  “Hello Lela – How are you getting along? Having a good time playing with Alice and Tom? How would you like to go fishing in Lake Michigan? Wouldn’t that be fun? Love from ‘Annie.’ “

Lela A. Hartman is only about four years old when she receives this postcard from Annie, who is probably one of her playmates. She is the daughter of Herman H. and Maude W. (Powers) Hartman. All are native to Ohio. Herman on the 1910 Federal Census is a mounter at a stove factory.

Sources:  Year: 1910; Census Place: Newark Ward 3, Licking, Ohio; Roll: T624_1204; Page: 3A; Enumeration District: 0088; FHL microfilm: 1375217. (Ancestry.com).

Original data: Indiana, Marriages, 1810-2001. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013. (Ancestry.com).