Park Lake, Orlando, Florida, Showing Park Lake Presbyterian Church, "The City Beautiful"

Park Lake, Orlando, Florida, showing Park Lake Presbyterian ChurchSurrounded by beautiful homes and a palm-lined boulevard.  Park Lakes is one of the thirty-three beautiful lakes within Orlando’s city limits.  There are 1,500 fresh water lakes of varying size in Orange County of which the city is the county seat.

Orlando, Fla. August 18, 1943

We are having a fine time.  Both Luella & Carroll look fine.  Enjoyed our trip very much. 

Sadie & Ralph

Mrs. Ida Shofe?

Aberlin, Pa.


The Park Lake neighborhood in Orlando is nearly as old as the city itself, and features the home used as an office by the renowned architect Ida Annah Ryan.  Working in the Prairie School under Frank Lloyd Wright, Ms. Ryan and her partner Isabel Roberts designed many buildings in central Florida, some of which are still standing today.

Sunshine Park, Orlando, Florida

Sunshine Park, Orlando, FL

Orlando, Fla.  February 2, 1940

We have not played as much shuffleboard as we did before the cold.  Even with the sun beaming on you, you could freeze to death.  Today was lovely and in a few days well will have forgotten the cold.  All the flowers are gone but soon there will be others to take their place.  Carolyn Mara is entertaining us tomorrow night.

Love,

S. Downing

Mrs. Harold Holbrook

Arch Street

Dover, N.H.


Google Maps will show a Sunshine Park in Orlando, but it was a National Guard Armory from 1938 to 1983, and is officially known as the Orlando Downtown Recreation Complex, with no shuffleboard courts in sight.  Shuffleboard as a sport started in Daytona in 1913, reaching its peak in the 1940's, especially among the growing retired population in Florida.  According to the Florida Shuffleboard Association, there are no teams currently playing in Orlando anymore, and I can't recall any surviving courts within the city limits.  If you want to know more about the sport, the blog Visual Epherma tackles the question of preserving this sport seriously and thoughtfully, along with photos of existing (and sadly deteriorating) courts around central and south Florida.

Dover, New Hampshire has been a thriving commercial center since the 1700's.  Through shipbuilding, cotton and brick manufacture, and the University of New Hampshire, the city has flourished for centuries.  (at least that's what the city's website implies.)    The Social Security Death Index lists a number of Harold Holbrooks who would be an appropriate age to receive this postcard in 1940, and there is a Harold Holbrook scholarship at the University of New Hamsphire's Whittemore Business School that started in 1972 in a memorial to the former banker.  There's also an honorable mention of a Harold Holbrook in minutes from the city in 1945 that praise Mr. Holbrook for his war bond efforts.

Coincidentally, there is a prominent photographer in south Florida named Carolyn Mara.  She is most likely way to young to have entertained our writer.

Over a Garden Wall, Miami Beach, Fla.

Plant City, Fla, Friday, February 9, 1940

In car in Zolfo Springs, Fla waiting. 

Glad to know the teeth problem is over.

Citrus fruit hurt badly in this section.

Ate lunch in Ft. Myers.

Be in St. Pete Saturday morning.  

All well.  Love to all.

Edgar and Elziabeth

Mr. and Mrs. Harry T. Davis

Kings Highway

Swedesboro, New Jersey

This postcard looks like a Walter Carlos Williams poem, and could probably be read in a coffee shop.  I’ll let everyone know how “The First Annual Postcard Poetry Slam” goes as soon as I find the proper venue.

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.

Gulfstream Park from Main Club Terrace Entrance between Miami and Hollywood, Fla.

Miami Beach, Fla

November 20, 1957

11/18

Dear Harold:

They make the race tracks here very beautiful and attractive so they can take your money away painlessly.  Fortunately no tracks are open now.  Only a few more days then back to the cold city.

RTS?

Mr. Harold Pownall

118 W. Gorgas St.

Philadelphia 19

Pennsylvania


The Florida Derby is happening on March 31 at this historic track, where it has been held since 1952.  Started at Tampa Downs in 1926, the Derby is the premiere event of the Florida horse racing season, which as our writer notes, begins in January and ends in April.  In fact, if RTS had stuck around for a few months, he could have seen Tim Tam win the Florida Derby, only to nearly miss out on the Triple Crown at Belmont.

The name Harold Pownall comes up on quite a number of retrieved records in a Google search and on the SSDI, but since none tie that name to the city of Philadelphia.

Florida Sanitarium, Orlando, Florida

Orlando, Fla. February 18, 1954

1419 A W. Smith Ave., Orlando

Dear Marian

Arrived here safely but not my suit case.  I waited five days.  It was a big joke to live in my same clothes.  Marion wears size 12.  Yesterday I had a letter from Arthur telling us Jeanette is in the Wilhemmem Hospital.  I have also had to go but hoped she would wait until I got back.  So I have something to think about.  Hope everything will be O.K. Marian & Harry fair.

Love, K. D. T.

Miss Marian Clarke

1343 Rockland St.

Phila. 41

Pa.

The house at 1419 W. Smith Ave is still standing, and according to Orange County Property records, was sold in 1985 by a Kelda D. Thatcher.  Ms. Thatcher is most likely the "KDT" writing the postcard, but the trail goes cold, even with her unusual first name.  The same can be said about Marian Clarke, whose common name is plentiful in Philadelphia.  

Florida Sanitarium is better known today as Florida Hospital.  Opened in 1908 with $9,000 and four patients, the Florida Sanitarium treated tuberculosis patients by providing them with sunshine and fresh air based on the sanitarium model utilized in Battle Creek, Michigan in the late 19th century.  By 1970, the small 20 bed farmhouse had grown into a campus with state-of-the-art medical equipment and was renamed Florida Hospital Orlando.  

Pool and Ocean Bathing- Municipal Casino, Lake Worth, Florida

Greenacres City, Fla.  September 2, 1954

Just a few lines to let you know we arrived safely August 18 eve we had a very hot trip especially the first 2 days there where a cooler breeze coming towards the ocean.  Best wishes from the Kehrs

Mr. and Mrs. Norman Galada

17007 Glendale

Cleveland, Ohio


The Lake Worth Casino was not a beachside gambling hall, but a community gathering spot, public pool and changing house built in 1922 to replace a wooden structure that had burned in 1919.  Currently, the City of Lake Worth is rehabilitating the structure for a grand re-opening.

According to Trulia, the house at 17007 Glendale was built in 1941.  Cuyahoga County online records only go back to 1979, where for almost 30 years the house was owned by members of the Brooks family, until being transferred to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and sold to the current owner.

Norman Galada, according to the Social Security Death Index, passed away on December 9, 1999.  However, he has a son that lives in Ohio.  Unfortunately, WhitePages does not list email addresses, so I'm sending him a postcard with a link to this post.  As always, I'll update this post with any information about the Galadas or the Kehrs and their hot trip to Florida.