Downtown Orlando, Fla. From Lake Eola Park

November 12, 1949

Dear Flo-I’m taking your place as Maine-ear? Down in sunny Florida.  Came down with Mrs. Clark by train.  Do appreciate seeing at least a few of the things that you used to write about.  I’d love to raid someone’s orange orchard!  Seeing oranges just laying on the ground make my mouth water.  Mrs. C is good enough so I can leave and tour a little by myself. 

Thinking of you,

Ruby Whitney

Mrs. Robert Coe

Harrison, Maine


The Florida sun has intoxicated Ms. Ruby Whitney so much that she is casting aside any sense of property ownership, and descending into an anarchist rage!  No arrest records or news stories from Orlando suggest she carried out her citrus-fueled crime spree, so one can assume that Mrs. C. put a stop to that.


This postcard is looking across Lake Eola Park, and you can make out some of the buildings on this list, such as the Angebilt Hotel and First Orange Bank and Trust.  Harrison, ME is a resort town of about 2,000 people just east of the White Mountain National Forest and the New Hampshire border.  


There's a handful of Ruby Whitney's in historical data from Maine, but thanks to our good friends at Maine Genealogy,  we can be fairly certain that Mrs. Robert Coe was a Florence Spaulding.  The couple was married on December 14, 1945, nearly four years before this postcard was sent.  There is another age-appropriate mention of Florence Spaulding in an archived article from the Lewiston Daily Sun including her in the contestants for the Brown Prize Speaking.