Mrs. Charles Smith lived in Wallkill, a hamlet on the Wallkill River in Orange County of southeast New York State.
(Not long ago, we looked at other New York place names that ended in “kill” – the Dutch word for stream or river.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallkill,_Orange_County,_New_York
In July of 1909, Mrs. Smith received a postcard from S. C. H.
The postcard was mailed from Pine Bush, another hamlet within Orange County – almost eight miles west of Wallkill.
Both Wallkill and Pine Bush are within the Newburgh-Poughkeepsie statistical area of the Hudson River Valley.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Bush,_New_York
The face of the postcard is a bright drawing of a young woman cheerily maneuvering her canoe toward the shore.
The woman is wearing a yellow dress and sports a round cap on her head.
The watery scene is framed by a gilt border.
I am not sure about the meaning of the large “D” that appears on the bow of the canoe.
Beneath the scene is a printed legend, “Paddling My Own Canoe”.
This phrase, “Paddle your own canoe” has been traced to several publications circa 1844-1850.
Within a few years, the longer phrase, “Love many, Trust few, and Paddle your own canoe” became a popular expression acclaiming (and boasting of) self-reliance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddle_Your_Own_Canoe
In the “Little House” books of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Pa sings with the fiddle to a song with this refrain.
On the reverse, the sender addresses Mrs. Smith as “Mollie”.
The sender acknowledges that it has been a long time since a card was received from Mollie – although the sender was “glad to hear from you.”.
Pine Bush has been “so dry and dusty” that our writer “couldn’t get to the cemetery” – but the writer will do so “as soon as I can”.
It isn’t clear what was required at the cemetery – perhaps the care of a grave site or the placement of a remembrance for a recently-departed loved one.
In other news, SCH reports that she was “sorry to miss your Ma”; our writer “was in Middletown that day”.
(Middletown, NY is the largest city in Orange County – connected to two early rail lines.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middletown,_New_York
Annie Jordan did stop for a visit, and the two went to see Etta and Nora who were “haying”.
About her household, SCH writes, “we are as usual” and she hopes “you are too”.
Mollie preserved the postcard throughout her life.
We may hope that the correspondents maintained their exchange of postcards for many years.
