A few weeks ago, we read about the visitor to Bismarck, North Dakota who sent a postcard photograph of the rustic log cabin built by the youthful Teddy Roosevelt.
Today, we have a hand-colored photograph of the Roosevelt home at Oyster Bay, New York.
Theodore Roosevelt was born in Manhattan, on east 20th street, and was christened and married at Calvary Episcopal Church at 21st Street and Park Avenue.
His expeditions with the “Rough Riders” in the Spanish-American War made him a war hero, and he became Governor of New York State.
Roosevelt was a great public speaker with a passion for good government.
He became the face of the Progressive Movement to destroy the monopolistic trusts of the “robber barons” and to promote education, conservation, and improved working conditions.
The Roosevelts, reflecting Teddy’s advocacy for an active, outdoors life, raised their family in a country estate on Long Island.
Roosevelt was Vice-President of the US when William McKinley was assassinated at the World’s Fair in Buffalo, New York.
Teddy became President for the remainder of McKinley’s term, and was re-elected to his own term.
In 1906, the home on Oyster Bay was the President’s home.
It is a national park, today.
On September 26, 1906, Lou mailed this postcard “with compliments” from Elizabethtown, PA at 7 AM.
The postcard was stamped at the Swatara Station, and then at Union Deposit where it was delivered to Miss Annie Bashore on the same day.
Union Deposit is a village in southern Dauphin County, west of Hershey, PA.
The town lies on the winding Swatara Creek that proceeds in great loops toward the Susquehanna River.
I have remarked on other occasions about my dislike of the early 20th Century practice of applying glittery decoration to postcards.
On this postcard, streaks of glitter (lining the driveway, the lawns, and some lines of the house) created pockmarks on many areas of the face.
Some of the damage could be corrected with photo editing tools, but I did not complete the painstaking removal of glitter that obscures part of the legend identifying the Oyster Bay home.
