Miss Mary MacDonald lived in Medford, a city on the Mystic River in Middlesex County of northern Massachusetts.

Once a home to indigenous people who fished and farmed corn in the area, the native peoples were decimated by smallpox carried by English settlers who arrived around 1630.

Mills on the waterways were the first industry in the area, but the construction of canals and the arrival of the railroad led to rapid growth of manufacturing – crackers, tiles, bricks, rum, and clipper ships.

Today, Medford is home to Tufts University and boasts a population of about 60,000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medford,_Massachusetts

See Fun Facts (below)

It seems that Miss MacDonald was working outside the home as the address implies that she is boarding with Mrs. Otis.

In December of 1914, Mary received a Christmas postcard from Mary Riordan.

The postcard was mailed from Medford, suggesting that the two women named “Mary” lived close to one another.

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The face of the postcard is an amazing example of the deep embossing that European postcard publishers could achieve.

Here, branches and vines are woven into a rugged frame of raised paper on which embossed icicles are formed.

In the center, a very delicate gold pattern forms a border for a simple message, “A Merry Christmas”.

The tiny blue blossoms that twine around this small border provide the only color on the austere beauty of the face.

I do not recognize the publisher’s mark for the postcard which was “Made in Germany”.

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On the reverse, Mary Riordan writes, “I wish you a merry and joyful Christmas”.

Miss MacDonald preserved the pretty postcard throughout her life.

One hopes that the women enjoyed a wonderful Christmas in 1914 and continued a postcard correspondence for many years.

Fun Facts about Medford

Both “Jingle Bells” and “Over the River and Through the Wood” were written in reference to Medford.

The first ordained clergyman in Medford (1692) was the Rev. John Hancock -the grandfather of the bold signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Amelia Earhart worked as a Social Worker in Medford in 1925.

Fannie Farmer published her first Cookbook in Medford and James Plimpton invented roller skates (and created an international craze) in Medford.