Mr. James Stansbury lived in Coney Island, a peninsula extending into New York Bay in southern Brooklyn.
Since the mid 19th century, the area was a much-visited resort and amusement park.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coney_Island
Between Christmas and New Year of 1909, James received a postcard from Ruth.
Ruth mailed the postcard from Utica, the city that was a center of trade and transportation in central New York.
Utica, on the Mohawk River at the foothill of the Adirondack Mountains in central New York State, was an important stop on the Erie Canal.
The city’s fortunes rose and fell with the success of the canals and, later, the railroad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utica,_New_York
The face of the postcard is a photograph of downtown Utica, at Arcade and Genesee Streets.
The postcard was published by the Hugh C. Leighton Company of Portland, Maine; it was printed in Germany.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Postcards_published_by_Hugh_C._Leighton_Co.
On the reverse, Ruth thanks James for the “pretty Xmas card”.
Ruth adds that she is “sorry to hear of your (trouble).”
Ruth is eager to learn more, and “will look for a letter from you this week”.
I love these scenes of cities that were busy and prosperous more than a century ago.
It is ironic that the mills that departed central New York for the Carolinas, are now gone from that area also.
One hopes that James was relieved of his hardship, that Ruth received a letter, and that the James and Ruth remained friends and correspondents for many years.
