Home Surrounded by Tropical Foliage and Hedge of Flame Vine St. Petersburg, Fla.

January 12, 1959

Hi Come on down.  No snow here. 

Bob Martino

640 8^th Ave. South

St. Petersburg, Fla.

Mr. & Mrs. Tom Fairbanks

Rear 496 Main St.

Groveland, Mass


A short quick note from our good friend Bob Martino, one month prior to the previous message he sent to the Fairbanks'.  I'm trying to coin a neologism for the ubiquitous Florida weather contrast seen on most postcards- maybe "sunboasting."  This is the first of several postcards addressed to the Fairbanks family in Groveland, MA that came in the last lot of postcards I purchased.  Most antique stores get their inventory from either auctions or buying estates.  Postcards and greeting cards get saved in a stack over the years, and generally get discovered when the antique dealer finds them in that sweet roll-top desk or Victorian hutch.  They get added to the inventory, and generally put into a section of the store or booth.  If there's enough inventory, a dealer may organize the cards by location and theme, mixing in the used and unused cards.  This process is why the frequency of the same family name s fairly commonplace, but it still holds excitement and provides a more secure anchor to discover the identities of the recipients.

Thankfully, our friend Bob was kind enough to provide his return address on this card.  Unfortunately, Bob's house was swallowed up by the continuing expansion of Bayfront Medical Center and All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg.  There is a drywall company owned by a Bob Martino in St. Petersburg, but their website is under construction and very generalized.

The population of the town of Groveland was 3,297 in 1960, over half of what it is today.  Groveland is located in Essex County, made famous by the oddly shaped state legislative district drawn for Eldridge Gerry.  A cartoon of "the Gerry-mander" was published in 1812, and our political system had a new word that would shape our government every ten years.  The tidy white house at 496 Main St. still exists, as was listed in the Essex County deeds as being sold to a Claude Ritter in 1975.  Fairbanks seems to be a prominent surname in Groveland, maybe they were members of the Garden Club or descendants of the same Fairbanks family that owns the oldest timber house in America.

Among the Orange Groves in Florida

St. Petersburg, FL
February 3, 1959

Greetings from Florida.

Come on down where it is cold and wet.

Bob Martino

Mr. & Mrs. Thom. Fairbanks

Rear 496 Main St.

Groveland, Mass.


Thanks, Bob.


Mr. Martino is either a poor salesman, or close enough to his friends, the Fairbanks', that he can lay on the sarcasm.  There's more from Bob on another card, as well as the Fairbanks, so enjoy this pastoral scene from the not-too-distant past.


The first citrus trees in Florida were planted and cultivated by members of Christopher Columbus' crew, and continued under the Spanish flag as the first settlements in Florida began.  Even through freezes and disease, Florida continues to be a major producer of citrus, even as old orange groves are cleared to make way for suburban development.

I'm still waiting to hear back from the Groveland Historical Society, but check out this history from one of the Parker descendants detailing a church pageant from 1950.