John F. Kennedy Space Center, N.A.S.A.

JOHN F. KENNEDY SPACE CENTER N.A.S.A.

The original 7 Astronauts selected by NASA.  From left to right, Navy Lt. Comm. Malcolm Scott Carpenter, Air Force Capt. Leroy Cooper, Jr. Marine Lt. Col. John Glenn, Jr., Air Force Captain Virgil Grissom, Navy Lt. Comm. Walter Schira, Jr., Navy Lt. Comm. Alan Shepard, Jr., Air Force Major Donald Slayton.

postmarked March 29, 1968 Evanston, Ill.

Bob-

Just wanted to say "hi" -

Love,

John

Robert A, Strain

The Maytag Company

Oakbrook North

700 Harger Road

Oakbrook, Illinois

Bob Strain passed away in 2008.  (Coincidentally that same year, a different Robert Strain took over as director for NASA's Goddard Space Center.)  Bob did indeed work for the Maytag Corporation, retiring after 35 years.  After reading his obituary, I've decided against using any Maytag Repairman jokes- the man lived a full and happy life, well after his career at Maytag was over.  

As far as the original seven Mercury astronauts pictured on the front of this card, many are still with us:

Malcolm Scott Carpenter was the pilot of the second U.S. orbital flight, and is currently retired with his third wife, Barbara Curtin.

Leroy Cooper, Jr. , also known as Gordon Cooper, flew the last Mercury mission.  He passed away in 2004, still steadfast in his belief in UFOs and the government conspiracy to hide their existence.  

John Glenn, Jr.,  was the pilot of the first U.S. orbital space flight, and famously became the oldest human in space on board the Space Shuttle in 1998.  The former Congressman is retired and living with his wife in Ohio.

Virgil Grissom, the pilot of the second U.S. suborbital spaceflight was killed the year before this postcard was sent in the Apollo 1 fire. 

Walter Schira, Jr.,  the only astronaut in the Mercury group to receive an Emmy for the live television feed inside his Apollo mission.  After his retirement, he became a spokesman for Actifed, which kept his famous cold at bay during his mission.   Wally Schirra died in 2007.

  

Alan Shepard, Jr., pilot of the first Mercury flight passed away in 1998.

Donald "Deke" Slayton went on to found a company in Houston that launched the first private vehicle into space, the Conestoga.  He passed away from a brain tumor in 1993.

The links go to their official NASA biographies, but there is much more of their story (as well as Bob Strain's story) to tell on this little post.  Check it out, and go visit the Kennedy Space Center to learn about the rich history that went down in central Florida.

JFK Space Center, Vehicle Assembly Building

Postmarked March 27, 1968 Evanston, Ill.

Hi-

We went on this bus tour of Cape Kennedy on Friday.  We went into this biggest building in the world & we also saw the Saturn V rocket to be launched in April.

JOHN F. KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA NASA

NASA's Vehicle Assembly Bldg. (VAB) 525 ft. tall, occupying 8 acres of land, world's largest building in volume, where Apollo- Saturn Space Vehicles are assembled and prepared for lunar launch.

Andy Strain

583 Brookside Rd.

Barrington, Illinois 60010

With the recent scrub and retry on Tuesday of the SpaceX Dragon launch vehicle, I thought we'd travel over to the space coast for these next two cards, from the same sender, John.  You may notice that John refers to a Cape Kennedy, which is the name given to Cape Canaveral shortly after the President's assassination.  Since the Canaveral name had been established since the time of Ponce deLeon, many Floridans on the Space Coast objected, and finally got the state of Florida to restore the Canaveral name in 1973.  The Kennedy name is still memorialized in the title of the launch center and tourist attraction, of course.  

The Vehicle Assembly Building, built in 1966, was originally built to assemble the Saturn rockets for the Apollo missions.  It's one and half times the height of the Statue of Liberty, and contains nearly twice the volume as the Pentagon.  It was the tallest building in Florida until the Wells Fargo (Modis/Independent Life) Tower was built in Jacksonville in 1974.  

The 3 bedroom, 2.25 bathroom house in Barrington was built in 1962, and was sold in 2000.  Andy never owned the house, since he was most likely a child when he received this card.  Today, he is the chair of the Tahoe Transportation District Board of Directors in Lake Tahoe, California.  I'll update this post if he replies to my email.  

Sanibel Island Causeway, Sanibel Island, Florida

postmarked January 26, 1967, Fort Lauderdale, Fla


1/26/67


Have you run out of ink.  Hope you are well and find things you like on T.V.  Remember Jeopardy on 21 at 12:00 to 12:30.


Halls & Mother plan to come on Sunday for a visit.  Don't know how they'll like trailer life.  Mother will stay longer.  Must get busy.


Love Margaret & C.A.


Mr. and Mrs H.W. McConnell
R.D. 2
Sharpsville, Pa 16150


Happy Mother's Day, everyone!  I thought I'd take a break from the Orlando postcards to bring you the best postcard dialogue I've seen yet.  There's no credible search results for an H.W. McConnell in Sharpsville, PA, so just enjoy the T.V. advice from "Trailer Life."

Crescent Court, 1721 N. Mills St., Orlando, Florida

Recommended by AAA

CRESCENT COURT

1721 N. Mills St.- on route 17-192

Orlando, Florida

32 Rooms - Air Conditioned _ Electric Heat _ Wall-to-Wall Carpets _ Room Phones

Free Television - Swimming Pool

Phone GArden 2-4482

postmarked February 4, 1960.

Here since last Thursday.  Rain most of the time.

Love, Florence

Mrs. Herbert Bruce

98 Willow Road

Nahant, Mass.

This motel, one of many dotting U.S. 17-92 and other major highways through Orlando, provided a place for weary travelers driving on the pre-Interstate routes through Florida.  (You can find many still in existence on the Orange Blossom Trail, such as the Parliament House.)  Most of these motels had similar construction- a long building divided into small rooms with a courtyard and perhaps a pool out front.  Crescent Court was torn down in the 1990's to make room for the Orlando Immunology Center.

Nahent, Massachusetts is a small town of about 3,000 people in the northern part of the state.  The hues at 98 Willow Ave sits on Dorothy Cove, an inlet of Massachusetts Bay.  Herbert Bruce was listed in the "Who's Who on the Northern Shore of Massachusetts Bay- 1916."  It looks as if Herbert Bruce's wife was named Mildred Bruce, and they had at least one son, Herbert, Jr. who granted the property to someone in 1997.  Mildred was listed as deceased.  What a friend of a fairly prominent family in Massachusetts was doing in an Orlando motel for an entire week is unknown.  At least she had free television.

Cocoanut Palm in Miami, Fla.

Millboro, Mass. September 7, 1962

Sept. 5 ‘62

Hello Carrie,

We are up here for a short while.  Hope you get a chance to come see us.

Love,

The Lincolns

Miss Carrie L. Dudley

693 Hill St.

Whitinsville, Mass


I hope they got the chance to come see the Lincolns too!

Whitinsville, Massachusetts is an unincorporated village on the Mumford River, primarily known as a mill town throughout it's history.  The house where Miss Dudley lived cannot be seen on GoogleStreetView, but the address is on a winding Hill Street just outside the Historic District.  The SSDI lists a Carrie Dudley passing in 1980, but the Worcester County Land Deeds Registry shows two land transfer records from 1977 and 1978 for two properties with different addresses, one on Hill St.  It also shows she was unmarried at the time of transfer, which likely means she had no children.

As far as the ubiquitous (in south Florida) Cocoanut Palm,  it may not be a native plant.  Since its seeds can float and disperse for long periods, it's very likely to have naturally migrated to Florida where it can be seen as far north at Stuart on the east coast and Punta Gorda on the west.  There's a Monty Python joke in here somewhere...

Moonlight Over Lower Tampa Bay Showing Main and Channel Bridge of Sunshine Skyway

Touring the Sunshine Skyway is like going to Sea in your Automobile.  Fifteen miles of sun, sea, and sky and stops on the wide causeways are permitted to fish and enjoy the warm surf.  The Sunshine Skyway is reached from the Norht by U.S. 19, from the South by U.S. 41 and is part of the new West Florida Coast Speedway

Saint Petersburg, Fla., March 1, 1960

2-29-60

Sunshine, oranges, grapefruit & 78 degrees warm.  This is hard to beat.  Hope the snow melts a bit by the end of week.

Robert Cook

Mrs. Hazel Hawley

North Street

Morenci, Mich.

Morenci, Michigan is a small town of about 2,400 people situated in the middle of Michigan's shared border with Ohio.   The town was founded in 1833, and the residents there seem intent on preserving a "small town" way of life.  Unfortunately, there is no Hazel Hawley mentioned in that small town way of life for the past 100 years.  The Oak Grove Cemetery has three members of the Hawley family interred, with the most recent burial happening in 1906.  


"Going to sea in your automobile" is a very poor choice of words, considering what would happen to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge 20 years after this postcard was sent.

Orange Avenue as seen from the roof of City Hall, Orlando Florida

Winter Park, December 12, 1962

Dear Folks-

Thought I would send you a card to let you know what Orlando looks like now- I arrived here last Wednesday will probably leave Friday- The Company here that is building some equipment for our office has very strict cleaniless control- when I go in to look at the equipment I have to take of my shoes and put on a special white uniform and a hood over my head.

Best Regards 

Fred

Mr. and Mrs.  W. E. Faulkner

Route #3

Athens, Ala.

Either Fred is involved in some high-tech endeavors, or the Klu Klux Klan in Florida was suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  Points for the unintentionally ironic statement “this is what Orlando looks like now” from nearly 50 years ago.


Athens, Alabama was founded in 1818, and has a population of about 21,000 people today.  The city is part of the Huntsville-Decatur metropolitan area, and sits in Limestone County.  Nothing of the Faulkners or the Route #3 where they lived seems to turn up in a search.  There is a White Pages listing for a Frederick Faulkner in Ormond Beach, so maybe that's where old Fred retired after working with sensitive computer equipment in the 1960's.

For my Orlando readers, this view has obviously changed a lot.  You may be able recognize the Angebilt Hotel in the distance on Orange Avenue, but the buildings in the forefront have been torn down for the Suntrust Tower and the Grand Bohemian.  

West Palm Beach. Florida skyline framed by cocoanut palms

February 29, 1968

Dear Glenna,

Wish to thank you so much for everything.  Guess you think I have forgotten you.  We were (?) boat on Sat N for a dinner.  Gone all day Sun.  Monday (?) friends of ours.  Pat a+ Rich went on to Miami (?)  I was going home from there.  (Shaw?) father sick she might have to go there.  Judy will be here.  I will write you.

Mrs. Glenna Castul (Casteel?)

5203 Cortez Road

Orlando, Fla. 32808


West Palm Beach was incorporated by Henry Flagler in 1894 as a stop on his railroad.  If he knew that visitors to his city would be stricken with frustratingly bad handwriting, he may have stopped at St. Augustine.  Researching the people mentioned on this card is tantalizingly difficult, mainly because the search tools I use are local.  Here's what I pieced together so far:

The house at 5203 Cortez Drive still stands in the Orlando neighborhood of Pine Hills, and was probably in a much safer neighborhood back in 1968 than it is now.

The earliest online record from the Orange County Property appraiser is from August 1993,  when the house built in 1953 was sold by a Bruce and Beatrice Cutshall.


That's it.  No birth records, obituaries, or marriages with any variation on the name of the recipient.  I'm going to physically research this one, since it's close to home.  I'll update this post with any new leads.

City Hall, Orlando, FL “The City Beautiful”

August 16, 1962

Dear Lois, Just a line to let you know we are all doing fine as far as you can tell.  The doctor said Joyce could come home Sat.  Sent the pkg. yesterday.  The kids left their ball at our house.  You also left all those black plastic bags.  Guess we will leave here Sun. or Monday.  It sure is pretty here.  Write a letter when I get home. 

Mom

Mrs. Jas. T. Wagner

3789 W. 117^th

Cleveland, Ohio


A small departure from the usual "Florida/weather/leaving the cold is great/beautiful/better than shoveling snow like you're doing cards.  What did the doctor tell Joyce?  What was in the mysterious package?  Were all those black plastic bags for a massive killing spree, starting with those kids who left their ball AGAIN?

Or leaves.  Leaves is a possibility.

Orlando's City Hall was famously imploded in 1992 for Lethal Weapon 3, taking great care not to damage the new City Hall directly behind it.  The marble slabs from the demolished building are still being used at the White Wolf Cafe in Orlando's Antique Row on N. Orange Avenue.  Bill Frederick, Mayor of Orlando at the time, even has a small cameo in the film as a policeman!

Cleveland, Ohio is the largest metropolitan area in the state, and has a large number of Wagners.  For example, there is a Jason Wagner who owns the Lion on Lorain Bar and Grill.  There is another Jason Wagner who was murdered in prison in 2000.  However, both of these Jason Wagner's seem to be the wrong age to receive this postcard from Mom.  Today, the house at 3789 W. 117th is home to Stan's Beauty Shop, owned by a Stan Woo.  Cuyahoga County property records do not seem to be searchable by address, and no Wagner records seem to exist for that address.  Perhaps the Wagners just rented that little corner house while Mom was vacationing in the City Beautiful.