Friday Funny: Oh! you naughty man!

Somehow over a year has slipped by since my last post. Since today is Friday, and I still have many post cards from my collection that I have not yet shared, here's a slightly risqué one from 1907.

 

It depicts an man and a woman seated on a bench in the park. The caption records their conversation:

What are you thinking about Tommy?
Same as you.
Oh! you naughty man!

The way they are looking at one another, it is easy to guess what their thoughts may be.

The back bears the address

Miss Marion Corelli
228 ½ Wash St
Portland
    Ore

and is postmarked 25 May 1908 from Astoria, about 95 miles away on the Oregon coast.

The message is signed with the initials "GWG" and reads

How are you feeling
today little lady,
Can't say when I will
be back to the city,
soon I hope.

With some cursory research, I have been unable to identify either Miss Marion Corelli or GWG. A Marion Correlli appears in Portland city directories in the early 1900s, with the intriguing occupation of palmist, but the address is not on Wash or Washington street, so the identification is uncertain.

Wordless Wednesday: The Boulevard Room

Okay, I know, I know. This is supposed to be Wordless Wednesday, but I really can’t do a post without words. One of the goals of this blog is to make things searchable online, and words are a necessary ingredient toward meeting that goal. Still, the main focus of this post is on a picture, so it’s about as wordless as I’m going to get!

This is another item from my small collection of antique post cards. It depicts a night club scene, the most obvious element of which is a figure skater in a red dress executing a leap. In the foreground are numerous tables with people sitting at them, and to the left one couple is evidently being shown to a table by a waiter. Behind the figure skater, a moderately-sized band performs on an elevated part of the stage. (The remainder of the stage is ice.) The décor and architecture of the room complete the picture with some white, apparently marble, busts; an elegantly designed drop feature in the ceiling; and some rather grandiose doors adorned by blue curtains. At the bottom, typed words identify the location as “Boulevard Room” at “The Stevens * Chicago,” “A Hilton Hotel.”

The reverse side of the post card identifies the front:

ICE SHOWS at The BOULEVARD ROOM!

The outstanding night spot in Chicago...fea-
turing lavish Ice Shows on the largest hotel ice
rink in the country...big cast of skating stars.
Finest cuisine and famous orchestras for dancing. 
THE STEVENS * Chicago * A Hilton Hotel

There is no traditional stick-on postage stamp, but rather a rubber stamp bearing the words “U.S. Postage Paid” and a date in February of 1949. The card is addressed to T.S. Duthie, 460 Pittock Blk, Portland 5, Oregon, and the only message is, “Hello Tom.”

A Google search quickly revealed an article from 1968, on the event of the closing of the Boulevard Room. With palpable bitterness toward “the men in the home office” who “couldn’t care less about the prestige of an institution like the Boulevard room, or what it means to Chicago,” the columnist briefly relates that the room had once hosted regular floor shows, until the ice rink opened in March of 1948. Therefore, the ice performances had been underway for less than a year when this post card was sent.

Citation:

Will Leonard, “On the Town: After 20 Years, Boulevard Room Ice Revues End,” Chicago Tribune, 1 Dec 1968, p. 18 (section 5), col. 1; digital images, Chicago Tribune Archives (http://archives.chicagotribune.com/ : accessed 30 Aug 2017).

Friday Funny: A quiet, grave time

I was recently looking through my small collection of antique post cards, and came across this gem. It is a comic post card depicting a man smoking a pipe and pouring himself a drink while sitting atop the headstone which presumably belonged to his wife. The stone reads:

JANE ANN

DEAR WIFE

OF

JOHN HENPECK

and the caption reads “A quiet, grave time, at last!” At the top, someone has penned in the initials J.W.

On the reverse is a one cent stamp, with a post mark dated 1 Aug 1908 at 9 a.m. in Vancouver, Washington. The card is addressed to Mr. P. Gusted (or perhaps it is Lusted?), Portland, Oregon, and appears to have the memo that it is in care of “W. V. tel. Co.” The correspondence reads,

Hello Nephew,

Will be over Sun. morning if everything is Ho-K.

and it is signed either “your Uncy. Geo.” or “your Uncy. Leo.”

A quick Ancestry search through Portland city directories revealed no P. Gusted or P. Lusted, although there were others of both those surnames. I was reluctant to attempt more in-depth research, so I can currently shed no light on the recipient of this card. The sender is even more mysterious, as he signed only his first name. As for the initials “J. W.” on the front of the card—well, I have no idea what those mean.