Windmill Lodge, Ferris, Ontario

Divided back, unused postcard. Circa 1930s – 1940s.

Price:  $8.00     Size:  6 and 1/4 x 4 and 1/4″

“Windmill Lodge. Ferris, Ontario. Phones 425W4 and 83W5. 5 miles north of Callander on Highway No. 11. Watch for cream, black and orange windmill and cabins. 100 feet off highway on the beach on the way to North Bay. Mrs. Allan Leigh, prop. Insulated cabins and cottages on-the-lake. Inner spring mattresses – showers, running water in cabins, flush toilets. Delicatessen, meals and lunches. Sandy Beach – Safe Bathing – Pike, Pickerel and Bass Fishing.”

To get our bearings again (as per the prior post) the red “pin” on the map above marks the town of Callander, and according to the description on the card, the Windmill Lodge would have been located about 2/3 of the way up from Callander to North Bay. Today, there is the township of East Ferris, and West Ferris, a suburb of the town of North Bay. For time-frame and a little more info, we found a matching postcard at the excellent VintagePostcards.org (towards the bottom of the page in the link.) According to VintagePostcards, the Windmill Lodge is estimated as operating in the 1930s – 1940s, and may have been a forerunner to the Leighaven Cottages.

Sources:   Callander, ON, Canada. Google.com. (accessed March 29, 2017).

East Ferris. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Ferris. (accessed March 29, 2017).

“North Bay, Ontario:  Canadian History in Vintage Postcards.”  VintagePostcards.org. (accessed March 29, 2017).

Gananoque Motel And Cabins

Trade Card, Gananoque Motel and Cabins, 1945 – 1958.

Price:  $10.00        Size:  About 3 and 1/4 x 2 and 5/8″

Are there many trade cards for this 1950s era motel still floating around today? Maybe a family member has a stash somewhere, and one would assume others must have survived. After all, it was only about sixty years ago. But, at the time of this post, we see no others online.

To get our bearings, for those of us unfamiliar, Gananoque is a small town on the St. Lawrence River, about a half hour’s drive north, up Highway 2 from Kingston, Ontario.

The reverse of our card reads:

“Souvenirs, Fishing Licences. Phone 517W. Gananoque Motel And Cabins. Highway No. 2 – Just East of Eastern Gateway. Gananoque, Ontario, Canada. Completely Modern Motel. Private Conveniences in Cabins. Lunch Room and Gas Station on Premises. Prop. Agar & Rombough. Box 402 – Gananoque. Our Motto:  It’s a Pleasure to Please.”

G. S. Agar and D. A. Rombough were mentioned in The Ottawa Journal as part of group of honorees of the dealers of the Ottawa Division, Supertest Petroleum Corp., Ltd., who qualified for Long Association Awards in 1952 and again in 1957.

Erin Christie’s article (December 2008)  “End of an era for Country Squire”  filled in some details for us:  Stanley Agar and Donald Rombough’s Gananoque Motel was in business about thirteen years, and was,  “…10 small cabins in a horseshoe, five motel rooms, a gas bar and a snack bar”  when it was sold in 1958 to Warren, Rita and Wayne Gollogly, who renamed it the Cloverleaf Motel. The rest is history for the Gollogly Family who expanded the business into what became the Country Squire Resort and Spa (now under Best Western.)

Sources:  Gananoque. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gananoque. (accessed March 26, 2017).

“Supertest Dealers Honoured.”  The Ottawa Journal. Saturday, April 26, 1952. p. 27. (newspapers.com).

“Receive Supertest Awards.”  The Ottawa Journal. Wednesday, April 10, 1957. p. 19. (newspapers.com).

Supertest Petroleum. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertest_Petroleum. (accessed March 24, 2017).

Christie, Erin. “End of an era for Country Squire.” December 18, 2008. (www.gananoquereporter.com). Accessed March 26, 2017.

St. Louis Gate, Québec City

Divided Back, unused postcard. Publisher:  W. G. MacFarlane, Toronto, Buffalo-Leipzig. Series or number: I. 405. Printed in Germany. Circa December 1903 – 1904.

Price:  $3.00

The Canadian postal regulations allowed for the Divided Back postcard as of December 18, 1903, hence the start of the approximated date for the card. Prior to the new regulation, any message from the sender would have been written on the front of the card. So, because of the blank space on the front, we wonder if this card wasn’t maybe produced at or shortly after the regulations changed (almost like an example of a very short under-the-radar sub-era appearing between the “Private Mailing Card” that can be found on Pre-divided backs and the “Post Card” printing on the Divided Backs, and don’t we imagine the printers and publishers scrambling a little as they changed over?)

Les Remparts

The St. Louis Gate is one of the four ramparts of the city (a good word – rampart – up till now I never realized this was the word in use, nor that there is a junior hockey team named after them.) Anyway, in general, we like to see what was being said about a subject back in the day, so here’s a clipping from an article that appeared in The Scranton Tribune (PA) in 1894. At the time the article was written, the present-day St. Louis Gate was still fairly new, having been re-built about fourteen years earlier, and re-built maybe about twenty-four years or so before our postcard was published. But to correct the article:  Princess Louise laid the cornerstone of the Kent Gate, not the St. Louis Gate (though it was Princess Louise who declared that the gate known as St. Louis would retain its name.) It was Lord and Lady Dufferin that laid the cornerstone of the St. Louis.

Related LCG post:  “Princess Louise.”

Sources:  Ramparts of Quebec City. n.d. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramparts_of_Quebec_City. (accessed March 19, 2017).

“Antique Curios of Aged Quebec.” The Scranton Tribune. (Scranton, PA) Tuesday, December 18, 1894, p. 8. (Newspapers.com)

LeMoine, J. M. Picturesque Quebec:  A Sequel to Quebec Past and Present. Montreal:  Dawson Brothers, 1882. (Google.com)

La Calèche De Québec

Divided back, unused postcard. Publisher:  Librairie Garneau, Québec, PQ Canada.  Circa 1931.

Price:  $3.00

La Calèche:  a popular subject for old Québec postcards

The calèche, as shown in the postcard, is a light carriage with two large wheels, drawn by one horse, and usually seen with its top folded back. After searching old newspapers (the term calèche abounds) and books online, it seems the name was perhaps used generically for carriage, maybe at some point having something to do with the hood style. (This Wiki article in french shows the different look with four wheels) and after many searches the only thing that seems clear is that when exactly the two-wheeler came into being would be a subject for a more in-depth search, but here’s an excerpt from an article in 1850 that appeared in the Christian Watchman (Boston).

And we couldn’t resist including this next snippet from a short story by Fred Hunter from the newspaper Flag of Our Union (Boston) re a mysterious woman in a blue bonnet, bringing to mind the two-wheeler, really, if conjuring an image…

Speaking of bonnets, the women’s bonnet in images below, was aptly named the “caleche capote” (carriage hood). Newspaper articles in 1879 reference this as the latest style.

Surface romance

But back to the conveyance:  Is the vehicle as seen in the postcard above still in use today? No, today we’re talking about the horse-drawn four-wheeled carriage that has been a part of the tourist industry in the cities of Montréal and Québec. This is an eye-opening topic, if you have not yet heard of the plight of the carriage horse. Glad now that we never took that carriage ride, well what –  twenty years ago in Montréal? But, still. And through the surface of charm and romance we’d probably have thought anyway, “But is the horse happy?” You know how it is when you get that feeling that you’ve bought into something fake, something glossy on the surface but behind the scenes, “not so much.” So, in many cities the use of the carriage horse has already been banned, while in other places the fight continues. Below, a couple of excellent websites:

Anti-Calèche Defense Coalition

Horses Without Carriages

On to the postcard….

After some online digging we found that our card originated from a Real Photo Postcard:  One is currently showing on eBay, “The Old World Caleche, Quebec, P. Q.,” published by S. J. Hayward, 1448 Mountain St., Montréal, and dated by the sender in 1931. The photo itself could have been taken earlier. In addition to our tinted version there is a second colorized rendition from Toronto publisher, The Post Card & Greeting Card Company, Ltd., as shown below, second from left, top row, in some images from a Google search.

_________________________________________________________________________

Sources:  Calèche. The Canadian Encyclopedia. (accessed March 18, 2017).

Calèche. n.d. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal%C3%A8che (accessed March 18, 2017).

“A Trip to Quebec.” Christian Watchman (Boston, MA) Thursday, October 10, 1850. p. 4. (GenealogyBank.com)

Hunter, Fred. “The Blue Velvet Bonnet – A Parisian Tale.” Flag of Our Union (Boston, MA) Saturday, March 31, 1949. p. 4. (GenealogyBank.com)

“Images of caleche bonnet.” Cropping of Google.com search result. https://www.google.com/search?q=images+of+caleche+bonnet&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8. (accessed March 18, 2017).

“Old World Caèche Montreal Quebec Canada 1931.” ebay.com http://www.ebay.com.sg/itm/Old-World-Caleche-MONTREAL-Quebec-Canada-1931-S-J-Hayward-Postcard-3874-/192109228919?hash=item2cba9a3377:g:j~cAAOSwEzxYdbBK(accessed March 18, 2017).

“Images of Quebec postcards calèche.” Cropping of Google.com search result. https://www.google.com/search?q=images+of+cal%C3%A8che+postcards+quebec&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6_9-rwODSAhUQ32MKHYs4Bf0QsAQIGQ&biw=1205&bih=522. (accessed March 16, 2017).

Three Cheers

Divided back, embossed, used postcard. Postmarked February 25, 1910 from Pueblo, Colorado. St. Patrick Series No. 3.

Price:  $3.00

“Erin Go Bragh”

Three cheers for Old Erin’s Isle,

Three cheers for the harp and flag of green.

Three cheers for the shamrock boys,

And a kiss for the Irish Colleen.”

Another for St. Pat’s Day….Three-leaf clovers this time, and a pretty, rather heavily corseted colleen, pinning a clover on her man’s lapel. They’re out for a night on the town, she in her finest dress, he in top hat and tails. He’s bringing the shillelagh though, just in case of any trouble. 😉  Addressed to:   “Mr. J. M. Ellison, Sawnee, Okla.”  which the sender probably wrote in haste, as it should, of course, be Shawnee. She writes:

“2 – 25 -10.  Dear Mike: – Your letter received and I want you to do what ever you think best about that place. It sounds alright to me. Hope to see you soon. Love from all, Ma.”

Luck From Mattie Hicks, 1908

Undivided back, embossed, unused postcard. Publisher:  Raphael Tuck & Sons’  “St. Patricks Day Post Cards.”

Price:  $3.00

“St. Patrick’s Day – and I wish you Luck.”

Happy St. Pat’s Day! Here’s a barefoot country lass (love the fringe on the shawl or sweater) with a very large four-leaf clover and a little piggy running from underneath. The card is signed at the bottom in pencil,  “Mattie Hicks 1908.”