Mrs. D. T. Rinehart lived in Millers, the small community around a depot
(Millers Station) in northern Carrol County, Maryland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millers,_Maryland
We recently saw another postcard mailed to Millers – “The New City Hotel” (Frederick, Maryland).
In August of 1916, Mrs., Rinehart received a postcard from her sister, Stella.
Stella mailed the postcard from Baltimore, the bustling port and commercial center on the Chesapeake Bay – about 37 miles southeast of Millers.
In August of 1916, Mrs., Rinehart received a postcard from her sister, Stella.
Stella mailed the postcard from Baltimore, the bustling port and commercial center on the Chesapeake Bay – about 37 miles southeast of Millers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore
+ + + + + +
The face of the postcard is a hand-colored photograph of a trolley car stopped on Broadway, a major thoroughfare in Hanover, PA.
In 1916. the town of Hanover had a population of about 7500 people, and was home to a variety of industries.
I spent some time in Hanover a few decades ago, and recall that some remnants of trolley lines were still visible in the town.
In my recollection, the street looked very similar in the 1980’s’
Here, the trolley shares the street with horse-drawn buggies.
Unfortunately, both the face and the reverse of the postcard show significant signs of age.
There were disfiguring postmarks on the face, most of which I could remove digitally.
The reverse is marred by an adhesive, possibly to place the postcard in a scrapbook.
+ + + + + + +
On the reverse, Stella tells Mrs. Rinehart that “Margaret’s school will start on the 4th of September”.
The start date is conditional – “unless they would be put off a little while on account of the infantile paralysis.”
“There are no Sunday School sessions” at present.
“Infantile paralysis” is polio – which is most often communicated in warm months.
The summer of 1916 saw the first epidemic of polio in the US, with 27,000 reported cases and more than 6,000 deaths.
Here is the Google Summary:
“In 1916, the United States experienced a major polio epidemic, resulting in over 27,000 reported cases and at least 6,000 deaths. The epidemic, which lasted through October 1916, was particularly severe in New York City, where it caused over 2,000 deaths.”
School closings were not uncommon that Autumn.
I cannot read the last lines of Stella’s message.
One hopes that Margaret and her schoolmates escaped the contagion, and that school and Sunday School were able to resume when the emergency had passed.
