Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Nebraska

E.C. Patton album, cards 12-14

The three cards for today fall distinctly on Patton’s collecting side. Not a word anywhere suggesting potential purchases. Indeed they may well have been part of his network of post card correspondents. I’m trying not to prejudge how Patton assembled his collection, but these vary from some of the previous in ways that match with other exchanged post cards I’ve seen.

First up, a card from Monterrey, Mexico.

The front contains all there is of the message. This card basically only carries identification of the sender–Jose’ M. Guerra Cisneros–and the day they sent it. The reverse has the stamped name and address of the sender. Nothing more. We’re left to wonder where and how the two connected.

Guerra Cisneros chose a Mexican card to send, understandably, but in style it closely resembles those produced in other parts of the globe: an image on the front with a small section for the message and instructions on the reverse to only write the the name and direction of the recipient.

Ida Oakes of Bradford, Pennsylvania, took advantage of most of the white space on the postcard she sent off, all around the photo.

Again, no information about how the two connected, and the language of the message either contains hidden implications or may be exchanged between relative strangers.

Have been this far west, but probably you weren’t in existence then, as I was only 6 years old. If I happen to strike your vocation will you turn up. You are either a bellboy or a bank president.

Ida Oakes to E.C. Patton, 31 January 1907

Ida Oakes was in Pennsylvania when she mailed the card, though it bears an image from Colorado. She may have received the card, blank, from relatives or correspondents who lived in or passed through Colorado, and elected not to keep it but use it–since by her inscription she hadn’t been west in a while though we know only that she considers herself likely older than Patton. She evidently didn’t know how old he was (approx. 39), and either didn’t know his vocation or made a jest about his being anything from bellboy to bank president.

Then there’s this brief postal.

This strikes me as fairly typical of cards exchanged between members of post card clubs or other means of exchanging post cards. Often what they likely knew about the other was name (or initials), direction (state, city, possibly street address if large enough), and maybe what types of cards the other liked. J.L. Anderson of Beatrice, Nebraska, has evidently exchanged enough with Patton, or knows him well enough to justify the brief message “How do you like this find?” Perhaps Anderson was aware that Patton was a photographer and took similar images (of similar sites or not).

And that’s all for tonight. More another time, as there are many many cards remaining in this album! (And one of the most interesting–I peeked!–is close to the end.)

“Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Nebraska,” copyright 2021, Alea Henle.