This Blogging lark is a wonderful thing. I have friends all over the world and I can send messages and news to them all the time. For some particular reason, I seem to have a lot of friends in Ohio, a place I had hardly heard of before I took up my digital pen in 2006. Just think, I can sit here in West Yorkshire and communicate with people in far-off Ohio and exchange wonderfully meaningless little gems of conversation. How lucky I am, that kind of thing could never have happened 100 years ago.
Wanting to relax in preparation for the public execution of the Murdochs later today (a.k.a. their appearance before a Parliamentary Select Committee) I took a random dip into the plastic boxes that contain my Great Uncle Fowlers' vintage postcard collection. At the top of the pile was this picture postcard sent in April 1913 from Ravenna in Ohio to Keighley in West Yorkshire. I suspect that the Mr and Mrs Dawson who it was sent to were neighbours of Fowler and, knowing his postcard-collecting hobby, they passed the card on to him.
The reverse reads as follows:
"Dear Friends,
I guess you would be surprised to hear of me being in the hospital. Well I am glad to say I am home now feeling pretty good, of course I am just sitting up a few hours a day, but have got along fine considering how sick I was. Please don't screw my neck round! With love from Gladys".
Who Gladys was and what on earth was the matter with her neck I cannot imagine. As with all such things we can let our imaginations out on a day-trip and see where they take us.
Ravenna is easier to track down, as is the "modern business block" which features in the 1913 picture postcard. With the aid of Google Streetview I can visit Ravenna a lot easier than I could have done back in 1913. But StreetView has its limitations : whilst it can show me how the building is going on, it can tell me little of how poor old Glad is fairing. Luckily, as I say, I have friends in Ohio. Perhaps one of them could nip down to (or possibly up to) Ravenna and check out how Gladys is keeping. Thanks.
Alan: Given the postcard was sent in 1913, I think it would be safe to say Gladys passed on.
ReplyDeleteCB : Do you really think so? That's rather a sad thought.
ReplyDeleteAh, but when you think we were all dead before we were conceived, it's not such a bad fate. We've been there before.
ReplyDeleteCB : I wasn't too keen on it, that's why I left.
ReplyDeleteI suppose there’s just the slimmest chance that she might still be alive (she could have been a precocious 10 year old in 1913!), but I wouldn’t think she’d be very well. That’s a wonderful building still though isn’t it?
ReplyDeleteUnless you factor in time travel, then she could still be alive..you think? maybe?..haha
ReplyDeleteThe building has changed surprisingly little, but I fear that CB is correct about poor old Gladys.
ReplyDeleteYes sadly Gladys most likely has passed on but, given her delightfully funny and uplifting post note she surely lives on in the hearts of many! I so agree with you Alan on how many great and bright moments one can have keeping up with Blogger and such, I often think how my grandmother Ada would have thought this such a precious device...I know how she loved her typewriter, imagine a keyboard and the internet, priceless!
ReplyDeletePoor Gladys with her bad neck and all and now she is most certainly deceased. Too bad we don't know the whole story..maybe it continues on in your collection:)
ReplyDeleteWhile Gladys may have passed on, it's nice to know she left a little bit of herself behind for us to ponder on. Oh, and I love your photo of Trinity Church, Boston is one of my favorite places to visit. I hope you get back there.
ReplyDeleteYou can safely say that her problem was caught in the neck of time.
ReplyDeleteSort of reminds me of the old Sears and Roebuck place in Chicago or what I remember of it.
ReplyDeleteI watched the hearings on television today for some time. Saw both Murdoch's and wasn't impressed at all. I saw goldie locks - the one with red hair - and she wasn't impressive either. I guess I expected more all around.
What a great old postcard--we'll have to get Tess, Kimy et al on this right away!
ReplyDeleteWell done Alan! I love the way you juxtapose the old post card with the Google image. Technology is amazing!
ReplyDeleteI watched the Murdoch proceedings and found them unbelievable in every sense of the definition. He acted doughty but I think he's faking it. Nobody knows anything, not him, his son, Ms. Brooks. It's all B.S. They all knew and turned their heads.
My husband is convinced they'll get a slap on the wrist and go on with their lives because of power and influence. I hope not.
Doesn't everyone sign off with "please don't screw my neck round"?
ReplyDeleteI think Ravenna is up near Kim!
ReplyDeleteAlan, I have good news and bad news for you.
ReplyDelete1. Gladys is alive and well, but moved from Ohio to Massachusetts in the 1960s, IIRC. She now lives only a few streets away from me.
2. She drank the beer I was going to send to you.
yep tess is right - ravenna can be considered my neck of the woods as like cleveland it is part of what was once the connecticut western reserve.
ReplyDeletein fact just passed the exit for ravenna on sunday on our way home from the family picnic.
maybe gladys has some blogging relatives and they can give us a clue as to what the fates had in store for the ol' gal
And it's equally amusing to have someone from Yorkshire giving me a tour of my own country. I thought of that as I viewed your Boston photo too.
ReplyDeleteAlan, I'm enjoying your comments on Fox's blog as much as I'm enjoying his on yours! :)
ReplyDeleteI certainly agree some wonderful peeps live in Ohio! :)
Your box of postcards from Uncle Fowler continues to be a treasure trove!
one telling little quip brought a few titters before the custard pie when asked if he had gone in the back door of no 10 to see cameron he relied that he went in the back door to see brown and blair as well !!!
ReplyDeletesay no more???
How can you get so many things all in one post Alan? Amazing. I am hoping no-one will screw my neck round at present... seems that new varifocals and lots of computer work are no good for necks.
ReplyDeleteHello, Mr. Burnett; my name is Don Rankin. I'm from Ravenna, Ohio, and I stumbled across this postcard photo and blog page while searching for photos of a no-longer-existing TV repair shop in Ravenna. (As far as I'm aware, no TV repair shop ever existed in this building; Google's image search engine seems to have just thrown everything "Ravenna" at me.) Anyway, I noticed you wrote that you dug this postcard out of your great uncle Fowler's collection. Here's a coincidence you might enjoy: For many years (at least through the 1960s and '70s,) the street-level business in the nearest corner of the building pictured on that postcard, was Fowler's drug store. I'm placing a link here to a springtime 1967 photograph from an album in the Ravenna High School Class of 1971's Facebook page. I hope the correct photo will display. If it does, you'll of course notice that, at the time, the "F" was broken off of the front of the store -- but this is the only photo I can immediately find. A little more trivia: The building is "Riddle Block 9," built in 1911. The Riddle name is no riddle to Ravenna natives: The Riddle family, part owners of the once renowned Merts & Riddle Coach and Hearse Builders of Ravenna, was one of Ravenna's wealthiest from the mid-nineteenth through early twentieth century. Over that span of time, they built, named and initially owned nearly two dozen sturdy office & apartment buildings, which still constitute the largest percentage of Ravenna's town center. Here's the Fowler's photo link, or at least its web address:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152222230578496&set=pb.343814383495.-2207520000.1384957676.&type=3&theater