A Trek in the Himalayas

These cards belong to Pamela Gerard, who has a wonderful blog on mail art and sent me these to post.  The story of these postcards also involves the story of how I got to know Pamela.  We did not meet in the Himalayas. Here are the postcards -story to follow.

According to Wikipedia,  the Pindari Glacier trail provides for a 90 km (56 mile) round-trip trek that most people find comfortable to complete in five days. Notice William Archer's fancy initials there on the left. I wonder which one of these fellows is Archer.  I assume that Archer was the author of India and the Future, published by Knopf in 1918. I am also guessing that William George Archer (1907-1979), expert on Indian art, was his son. 

Here are the backs of the cards, sent by Archer from Calcutta, 15 Park Street, top flat, and the Calcutta YMCA, by W. Archer.

Now, more on Pamela, the owner of these fabulous cards: Pamela lives in San Francisco and has a fondness for Chinese and other Asian restaurants. I asked her for some San Francisco restaurant recommendations, and she mailed me menus and commentary. Then, somehow, we started exchanging music CDs. And then recently, I received an email from my friend Susi in Germany who had read something about Pamela and thought I might be interested:

This all made me think of you!‏

Check out "Wait a minute, Mr. Postman":

http://www.vormirdiewelt.de/?category_name=sanfrancisco&paged=2

http://www.CappuccinoandArtJournal.blogspot.com/

Pamela was becoming famous in Germany. Who knew! Of course I replied that I already knew Pamela, and I asked my friend how she had learned about her.

My German friend responded:

I follow "Vor Mir Die Welt" and read her post mentioning Pamela. 

Meike (VMDW and a journalist) won €500,000 on the German version of Who wants to be a Millionaire and is traveling the world (12 months, 12 cities). I got onto her, because another journalist (bro. of a friend in Munich) is traveling through Germany on foot from South to North and stayed with us one night. He told me about his friend Meike...

Here is Harald's blog: http://deutschlandumsonst.wordpress.com/

It just goes to show you that there are a lot of connections made through the blog world.

Speaking of that, you can make all sorts of good connections with the past and present over at Sepia Saturday.

Oregon Pear and Peach Orchard

Soon I will run out of giant fruit and vegetable cards to post on this blog. Some people may consider this a blessing. But the message on the backs of these cards have often been very entertaining too. Here's one of pears and peaches in Oregon. It seems strange to group those two together, since they ripen at different times of the year...not to mention that Oregon is hardly prime peach-growing territory. Well, never mind all that. We do grow great pears here.

 And here's the back of the card.

The virtually punctuation-free message on the card sent to Rebecca Bales is not that exciting. It reads:

Dear Sis

I received your card was glad to hear from you will try to write a letter for that country soon though am pretty busy to write hope every thing  is O.K.  up there every thing  is O.K. here so write As Ever

F.B.

So, here's what's interesting (to me, anyway) about this card: it was sent to Dorena, Oregon, a logging and gold-mining town that doesn't exist anymore. For reasons unknown to me, the name of the town was created by combining the first names of Dora Burnette and Rena Martin. The town already had a school and a post office back in the 1890s. In the 1940s, the Corps. of Engineers began constructing a dam on the nearby Row River. According to Wikipedia,  the entire town was flooded and approximately 100 households were moved five miles upriver. It's still called Dorena, but it's not the same place. The lake created by the dam is called Dorena Lake.

Dutch Stereotype

Back in about 1910, cards that provided a humorous stereotypical view of Dutch (and sometimes Germans) were very popular. As far as I can tell, the humor was well intended. These cards were all sent to  Cora Huffsmith  of Dushore, Pennsylvania.  According to Conover Genealogy,  Cora Huffsmith, born in Pennsylvania in 1891, was the 8th great-granddaughter of Wolphert Gerretse Van Kouwenhoven, a baker from Utrecht, Netherlands.  Friends and family must have sent her these cards because of her Dutch heritage.

Here are ze backs of de cards in ze same order: