Florence Eisenbise lived in Reading, a manufacturing, commercial, and transportation center of southeastern Pennsylvania.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading,_Pennsylvania
Florence lived at 1225 Chestnut Street in Reading.
The tidy, red-brick row home in which Florence resided was erected in 1890 and it still stands.
https://www.redfin.com/PA/Reading/1225-Chestnut-St-19602/home/38194290
Florence exchanged postcards with Charlotte Thorn of York, Pa.
York, the “White Rose City” of south-central Pennsylvania, was first settled by German and Scots-Irish immigrants from Philadelphia in 1741.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York,_Pennsylvania
Charlotte lived at 142 South George Street, a major thoroughfare in York.
The building in which Charlotte lived is no longer standing – the site is now a fast-food restaurant.
In October of 1906, Florence sent Charlotte a postcard photograph of an amazing sculpture and basin that was erected in a city park in Reading.
Florence and Charlotte may have been members of a popular Postcard Club or Postcard Exchange – two representatives of the millions in the early twentieth century who exchanged postcards as a hobby.
On the face of this postcard, Florence has written, “Thanks for pretty postal”.
The face of the postcard is a hand-colored photograph of the “Deer Fountain” in Reading.
There are many postcard views of this remarkable statue, but a concise history of the statue is difficult to find.
The statue’s history is complicated by the fact that the animal is an elk, not a deer.
This postcard was published by the Illustrated Post Card Company of New York, and was printed in Germany.
The postcard publisher has titled the image, “Deer Fountain”.
A member of a Berks County History (PA) site offered the following:
“The often-photographed Elk Fountain was designed and made by J.W. Fiske of New York City. The eight drinking posts surrounding the elongated octagonal basin were each 4-feet 2-inches high. The basin itself measured nearly 12 by 15 feet. Supporting the elk was a base of iron, painted black. At each end was a lion’s head which carried overflow from the filtering arrangement. The elk, described as standing in a defiant attitude, was painted in “the natural colors of the animal”.
It is likely that Florence had seen the remarkable statue.
Charlotte seems to have enjoyed the view as she preserved the postcard in good condition throughout her life.
