Dick Bowers lived in Minneapolis, the city of agricultural mills on the Mississippi River in southeast Minnesota.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis
In October of 1911, Dick received a postcard from John.
John mailed the postcard from Chicago – the great city on Lake Michigan, about 400 miles southeast of Minneapolis.
The face of the postcard is a photograph of a Bactrian camel (two humps) at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactrian_camel
Lincoln Park, the largest park in Chicago, includes more than 7 miles of nature trails, an enormous variety of trees and plant life, the Chicago History Museum, a Conservatory, a Lily Pool, athletic fields, a Bird Sanctuary, and the Zoo – within its 1,214 acres.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Park
(We have seen other postcard stories related to Lincoln Park – including one featuring the large statue of Lincoln that adorns the site.)
For the photograph, the camel stands placidly beside a large feed trough.
On the reverse, John asks facetiously, “How would you like to be a camel”.
John clarifies, “but not in Lincoln Park”.
A better option, according to John, would be “some Brewery Park”.
The “Pilsen Brewery Park in Chicago” comes to mind for John.
The Pilsen Brewery was formed in 1903 by a group of Slovakian tavern owners who resisted the monopoly of the Schlitz brewery.
The history of the company is fascinating, reflecting competition between the German and Czech brewing traditions and between the many ethnic neighborhoods of Chicago.
In 1907, the owners of Pilsen created an enormous Beer Garden adjacent to the brewery.
The Brewery park included a beer garden, dance pavilion, and grand stage – and became a crowded center of Czech culture and community for many years.
Undoubtedly, a “camel” would have more stimulation and a greater variety of food at this place.
Unfortunately, the Brewery park did not survive the cultural changes of the post- WW II era.
The Pilsen Brewery Park was developed a shopping center in 1967.
I suspect that John and Dick are both young men – with their references to living in a brewery park.
(The genealogical date below suggests that Dick was 24 years old in 1911.)
One hopes that the camel was content in the Park, that John enjoyed other sights of Chicago, and that John and Dick remained friends and correspondents for many years.
GENEALOGICAL NOTE:
I believe that “Dick” is Joseph Richard Bowers, born in Minneapolis in 1887.
There are numerous records for persons named “Richard Bowers” that might be considered – but this person registered for the US Draft in 1917 as “Dick”.
Also, Joseph Richard Bowers had a brother, John.
Joseph Richard Bowers was the son of John Joseph Bowers, Jr. (1854-1949) and Ada Gertrude Hodgeman (1860-1938).
Dick had 3 brothers and 5 sisters.
Sometime around 1908, Dick married Alice Seiger (born 1892) – Alice would have married at the age of 16 or 17.
The couple had five sons and two daughters.
After 1940, Dick’s family lived in Bloomington – a suburb of Minneapolis.
Probably due to the use of a nickname, there are a lot of isolated documents that could be related to Dick and Alice.
I have not tried to piece together the disparate records -although I would like to determine exactly the death dates for the couple.
