The trimmest little boats to take you over

Katheryn McMahon Newton album, cards 71-75

Today’s cards are a bit of a grab-bag variety. They do continue the water theme from the last post.

First up, a fairly characteristic post from Fred while in Seattle.

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Once again he lauded the attractions of the West in general, in this case Seattle, as incentive for Katheryn eventually joining him, gave her an idea of what he does on his weekends, regretted she wasn’t there to enjoy it with him, and reminds her to write to him.

Dearie: This is a beautiful country for scenery. They claim in summer it is a regular Paradise on earth. We are enjoying early easter styles open cars + shirt waists, which conveys and idea of the fine weather on tap here. Went over to an amusement park, called “Luna Park” opposite Seattle across the “Sound” Sunday Afternoon. It is a 12 mile trip + they have the trimest little boats to take you over in. How I wish you had of been with me dearie I thought of you and how you would have enjoyed this ride Am waiting for your reply Bye Bye dear

Fred Newton to Katheryn McMahon, 24 March 1908

Open cars, of course, means no tops up to protect against bad weather. I don’t know enough about the fashions of the times to say whether or not he meant open as an adjective to describe shirt waists as well. If such a fashion did not exist, then I would guess that he didn’t mean it that way. (An open shirt waist would likely equate to an unfastened shirt–a style much more acceptable in the early twenty-first century than the early twentieth.)

Based on a quick Google search, Luna Park was a short-lived amusement park near Seattle–named after the park on Coney Island.

The next card is a rare blank. I can’t prove anything, but it’s quite likely this was a gift from Fred to Katheryn regardless. The caption for the image places it at Pueblo, Colorado, which we know Fred visited. The reverse is in the style of early twentieth century cards, particularly before Congress changed the laws to allow messages to be written on the backs. That’s my guess, anyway.

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Following, we have an unusually short message from Fred (“Well just because I thought you would think it pretty and well —!”) postmarked and dated 21 February 1908. Not much to say about this at this time–but there may be more particularly at the end when I sort the cards in date order.

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The last two images are both without any written messages–the cards themselves are the messages. One is to Anna McMahon. Since it portrays a Niagara Falls-related scene, odds are it came from J.T.R. who sent her other such cards on the same day . . .

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The other is of unidentified rapids. Addressed to Kittie McMahon, it lacks a date or postmark, and the handwriting reminds me of the cards (also without messages or with brief ones) from Europe. Its possible there’s some kind of writing in the rapids toward the bottom left–or that might be an optical illusion (or ink marks left when it pressed against a letter or card that hadn’t fully dried . . .)

More mysteries.

“The trimmest little boats to take you over,” copyright 2021, A.R. Henle.