Mr. and Mrs. N. L. Parks lived in Montrose, a borough in Susquehanna County of northeast Pennsylvania.
In the early 20th century, Montrose had significant industries – “blue stone” was quarried in several places, and local business supported nearby coal mining operations.
The population of Montrose peaked in 1960, and the population today is significantly fewer than it was at the time the postcard was mailed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose,_Pennsylvania
In July of 1920, the Parks received a postcard from their daughter, Freda.
Freda mailed the postcard from Niagara, NY, the town on the US side of Niagara Falls.
The postcard had been prepared before reaching Niagara; Freda reports that “I am writing this from the return boat”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara,_New_York
It appears that Freda is part of a group that has made an excursion to Toronto, the prosperous and cosmopolitan city of Ontario, Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto
The face of the postcard is a collage of photographs – five grand churches in Canada’s largest city.
At the top are the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Michael, the Jarvis Street Baptist Church, and the Anglican Cathedral of St. James.
(I have attended the service of Morning Prayer in the magnificent Church of St. James.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_Church_of_St.James(Toronto)
The postcard was published by Valentine & Sons United Publishing Company, LTD, of Toronto and Winnipeg.
In other postcard stories, we have seen several forms of the Valentine Company – which was established originally in England.
Valentine & Sons survived the great postcard publishing crisis of the First World War.
On the reverse, there is a hint that Freda may have grown weary of seeing churches.
She writes, “we have been to Toronto today, had a most wonderful drive around city.”
Then, Freda adds, “Seems to me most every other thing I saw was churches.”
“There are”, Freda notes, “350 churches in the city”.
It seems that Freda’s parents were delighted to hear from her as the postcard was preserved in good condition for a century.
One hopes that Freda returned home safely and that she had other travel tales to share with her parents.
