Lake Eola, Orlando, Fla.

Lake Eola, Fla.

Postmarked March 11, 1905 Received March 14 1905 Northhampton, Mass.

March 10

We have been in Orlando since Wednesday, but shall stay but one week so direct your next to Jacksonville, Gen. Del.  Papa is better but I think the water in Tampa was not good for him.

Mama

Miss Beaulah Wells

Albright House,

Northhampton, Mass.

As a Tampa native living in Orlando, I can attest to the lesser quality of Tampa’s water system, and I am not surprised that Papa suffered some as a result. 

Northhampton, Massachusetts is a town of about 23,000 people with an eclectic social history.  It's been home to a Great Awekening, Transcendental Abolitionism, Industrial Age and Rust Belt Decline, and now vibrant music scene and large LGBT community.    Albright House is a dormitory still in use today at Smith College, and there is a mention of a Beulah Wells in the October 1905 Smith College Monthly newsletter (archived here) that informs us that Miss Wells went to Rochester, N.Y. to work at the Rochester Business Institute.  From there, the trail grows cold.

On a tangent, if that's a receiving postmark from Northhampton, then that shows it took three days en route through our Postal Service.  Before optical character recognition and ZIP codes.  Before Interstate Highways.  Wow.

Here's the game I invite all my Orlando readers to play with me.  Try to find the correct shore of Lake Eola that corresponds with this photo.  My guess is the camera is located on the northwest shore looking south, which would put the structure in the photo where the bandshell is today.  I welcome your thoughts and photos, with which I will update this blog to compare the two!