Eleven Pound Baby

No, this is not a picture of the baby; this is a turkey. See the back of the card for details on the turkey-sized baby.

The message sent to William Jefferson in 1909 reads:

Dear Annie +Will - You will be surprised  to hear of our Eleven pownd Boy Born Nov. 22.

answer, Lane + Lee

Good for What Ails You - Part 1

This isn't a postcard, but a trade card from around 1880; it's called a metamorphic trade card.
We may make fun of the miracle cures and snake oils of yesteryear, but in fact we have many similar and equally questionable remedies today. And some remedies like this one were probably very effective. It's an ad for cod liver oil, Van Stan's Emulsion. Cod liver oil went out of fashion a long time ago, but we have rediscovered it. I take fish oil, so I'm hoping it will make me look younger just like it did these people. Besides that, it will cure scrofula, whatever that is.

All you have to do is flip back the top of the card and the miraculous cure has taken place:

The woman looks dramatically younger and healthier. I'm going to go out and buy a couple of bottles.
The other side of the same card has another equally good advertisement for a cement glue (Van Stan's Stratena):

Fold back the top and everything is fixed!

Shavertown and Pepacton, New York

This is a great old humor card, but the back side of the card is really of greater interest.  There's a reason I didn't recognize the towns of the sender and the recipient; they have been submerged under water for over 50 years.  Here's the other side of the card:

Tom Miner sent this letter from Shavertown, New York to his wife in nearby Pepacton in 1917. I'm not going to correct his spelling. Here's the message:

We are going to the show to night. We worked 10 hrs to day but to morrow we are not going to work like that

We are going to chainge I tell you

latter (?)

your hisban Tom

New York City needed water, so they purchased the valley on the Delaware River in 1942, displacing 974 people, destroying four towns, and submerging nearly half of the Delaware and Northern Railroad. What that actually meant is that the property owners were served with notices of condemnation.  The property owner had a choice to accept half the assessed value of the property and vacate the premises or hire an attorney. Residents who hired attorneys had their cases heard before three commissioners, one from Delaware County, one from New York City, and one from the 6th judicial district. The commissioners ultimately decided what the award should be.

A special panel of engineers hired by the Mayor of New York City to look at alternatives, recommended the Hudson as a water source instead of damming the Delaware. They also recommended universal metering and fixing leaks in New York City as conservation measures to reduce the demand. The Board of Water Supply objected to the report, and New York City rejected it in favor of the original Delaware River plan.
 
The West branch of the Delaware River was dammed, and flooding was completed in 1955, creating a reservoir twenty miles long and about a half mile wide. Along with the displaced living residents, graves from the local cemeteries had to be exhumed and moved. The reservoir currently provides new York City with about 25% of its drinking water.

Alice Jacobson, a former resident, has written a book entitled Beneath Pepacton Waters, which tells about life and people in the area before the dam.