Because I have a small collection of postcards from the same trip, I am sure that the writer is Robert Zecher, son of Walter E. Zecher – President of the Lancaster County National Bank (Pennsylvania).
Robert graduated from Franklin & Marshall College in the Spring of 1924, and I assume that this trip was a celebratory “Grand Tour”.
Our hero was a good student – he was awarded the Williamson Medal for 1924 and he was the Marshall Orator at the graduation ceremony.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_%26_Marshall_College
In August of 1924, Robert was in Luzern – the beautiful Swiss city on Lake Lucerne, from which flows the River Reuss.
This city, in central Switzerland, has been a center of trade, transportation, and culture for many centuries.
The earliest settlements surrounded a Benedictine Monastery that was founded in the 8th century, as the influence of the Roman Empire had faded and Germanic tribes moved into the area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucerne
From Lucerne, Robert sent a beautifully-colored postcard to his grandmother, Mrs. G. B. Cummings.
The lovely scene was printed by E. Goetz of Luzern.
Robert’s mother was Zillah Cummings Zecher, so the postcard recipient would be his maternal grandmother.
Mrs. Cummings lived on University Avenue in New York City, an important thoroughfare in the Bronx.
(The Bronx, in the early twentieth century, boasted numerous middle-class and upper-class neighborhoods.)
Unfortunately, like many of the substantial private homes near the current Cross- Bronx Expressway, The residence of Mrs. Cummiings has been replaced by a tall, non-distinguished apartment building.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bronx
The face of the postcard shows the twin towers of the Cathedral in Luzern, overlooking Lake Lucerne and shadowed by the Alps.
One of the alpine peaks, Mount Pilatus, is named on the face of the postcard.
On the reverse, Robert reports that he had taken a cog railway to the top of this peak.
The mount is “seven times as high than Eiffel Tower, but is not snow-capped in summer.”
A fair amount of Zecher correspondence was collected at some time; we assume that Grandma preserved this memento from her grandson.
One hopes that Robert enjoyed many more adventures in Europe.
After teaching mathematics for one year, Robert joined his father at the Lancaster County National Bank.
He filled several positions within the Bank before becoming President at the death of his father (at age 55) in 1931.
Sadly, Robert also died at a young age.
Robert suffered a heart attack and died of subsequent complications when he was thirty-seven years old, in 1942.
I will share additional travel scenes (and a postcard from Graduate School at Columbia University) in future Postcard Stories.
