Dialysis, damned if you do...dead if you don't 12 Apr 2019 04:31:08pm
re: Help with Postcard Identification Point(s)...
I believe it is Mendon, not Menden. In 1912 phones were new to Mendon, it is likely that the folks in Mendon had only gotten phone service within a few months. Here is the Bell Phone coverage map from late 1910. (Mendon is a few miles east of Ursa and is not shown on this map as having phone service.)
This was the mailman in Mendon IL in 1914, there is a good chance that he handled the postcard above.
'
After I guessed (correctly!) that the card was addressed to Illinois, I looked back at the green circle and guessed the card was written in the town of Ivy, Illinois.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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"I collect stamps today precisely the way I collected stamps when I was ten years old."
Dialysis, damned if you do...dead if you don't 13 Apr 2019 08:00:30am
re: Help with Postcard Identification Point(s)...
"ORANGE - Can you help me identify this postmark? "TRANS.C??? 1912 6 PM""
The cancel says 'TRANS.CLK' and means Transfer Clerk. These are a railway marking used by a PO employee working in a transfer office or terminal Railroad PO (when mail was transferred between or directed to a connecting railroad).
Remember, before 1918-1920 longer distance (greater than 20 miles) mail movement in rural areas meant using the railroad. Motorized trucks, while they existed in this period, were largely restricted to city and some urban areas where paved roads and support facilities existed. So when looking at rural covers and postmarks before 1920, you can safely work under the assumption that it was on a train at some point.
Don
There's an Ivy, Monroe County, Illinois listed in the GNIS database but I see references elsewhere to an Ivy Landing, Ivy Lane etc. including the following quotation from an 1883 publication, Combined History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties, Illinois:
"Ivy Landing
Ivy Landing, formerly known as Goodman's Landing, is on the Mississippi in the extreme south part of Mitchie precinct, and is an important shipping point. A post-office by the name of Ivy was established in 1874. George W. Cavanaugh was the first postmaster; Smith H. Brickey now has charge of the office. Mr. Brickey and Zeno Aubuchon have carried on the mercantile business since 1874. There is a blacksmith shop, and the place in all contains about half a dozen buildings."
Comparing the way the writer has written her capital "I" and "J" at the top, I wouldn't be surprised if she had indeed written "Ivy".
Dialysis, damned if you do...dead if you don't 16 Apr 2019 01:11:50pm
re: Help with Postcard Identification Point(s)...
"I like it that the town is so small the sender does not even bother with a "numbered" address!"
Life in 1910-1915 was vastly different than today.
Keep in mind the paradigm shift that RFD (Rural Free Delivery) represented. While ‘city folks’ had been putting street addresses on their mail since about 1865, most all rural folks made the trip into town to get their mail until around 1900. Until then, rural people made a trip into town once a week or so to get mail and any other supplies they might need. For many the trip was also social, allowing them to catch up with others, buy a newspaper, etc.
So when RFD started to be implemented around 1985 1895, some people did not support it at all. Store owners, for example, felt business would drop. And of course just like today, people who simply do not like change and felt the ‘good ol days’ were better.
The political mood towards RFD was mixed. Some politicians supported RFD since they thought they could reach more people through mail. Other politicians did not support it because they handed out ‘postmaster’ position as political favors every few years to thousands of store owners. (RFD closed a huge number of small store/post offices around the country.)
But as RFD expanded in the early 1900s, the mailman replaced the trip into town. He now became the social contact with the rural population and people would gather the latest news and or the price of corn. It was not unusually for them to be asked to read a postcard or letter if the person was illiterate. The RFD delivery vehicles were also a ‘post office on wheels’; they sold stamps and money orders right out of the vehicles.
So the mailman would be quite familiar with the patrons on his route in the early 1900s.
Don
We can also buy stamps from our mail carrier in rural Iowa. Just last week he left the stamp order envelope in our mailbox. The idea is to leave your check and stamp order in your mailbox and the stamps will be delivered the next day.
A couple years ago, I could call the postal clerk and the stamps would arrive that same day. Haven't tried that in a long time because all the staff from back then have retired. With the restricted hours and lack of selection, I have been getting the recent issues at the larger post office in the town where I work.
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