We've unearthed many treasures from family history this past year and I have felt compelled to share them. It's funny how simple things like post cards can become treasures seventy eight years after their postmark.
This postcard pictures downtown Las Vegas, Fremont Street to be specific. It was postmarked May 15, 1936. Bugsy Siegel won't open the Flamingo for another ten years and the Hoover Dam had just been completed the year before. In fact, Douglas F. tells his Aunt Louise he plans to visit the new power plant:
Dear Aunt Louise
got here last night
all O.K. going
to the dam
and then on to
L.A. tonight
its to hot for me
here 102 last night
Doug [sic]
Along with the photo, you may find interesting the one cent Benjamin Franklin stamp affixed to the card. The card it's self is 5.5" x 3.5" (14 cm x 9 cm). The mechanism that stamped the postmark was pronounced enough to have embossed the card. You can see the post office circle from the front of the card (over the arch in the middle of the street).
I've been particularly fascinated with mementos from my Grandfathers life. Of all my progenitors that I've had contact with, his story seems the most shrouded to me, due simply to the fact that he passed on when I was rather young, and the tangible links to him are much fewer than those to my Grandmother Wanda, for instance, whom I knew till I was 20. Perhaps this seems mundane to you but the spirit of Elija is strong with me and I want to share it.
