Miss Sarah Petillon lived in Poughkeepsie, a city and a college town (Vassar College) on the Hudson River in Dutchess County of southeast New York State.
The first European settlers of this area were Dutch citizens of the colony of New Netherland, and the city developed industry and commerce in successive generations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poughkeepsie,_New_York
One of the important Hudson River crossings that were built here, a high railroad bridge, has been preserved as a scenic walkway and hiking trail.
This photograph of the Hiking Trail was shared to Wiki by D. Shankbone.
In May of 1910, Sarah received a postcard from Olive.
Olive mailed the postcard from New York City, about 85 miles downstream of Poughkeepsie.
Trains still connect the two cities = by a scenic rail line that hugs the east bank of the Hudson River.
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The face of the postcard is divided between a drawing of the Good Shepherd rescuing a lamb, and two stanzas of a verse entitled. “The Song of the Mystic”.
I cannot find the artist to whom the drawing is attributed – copies hung in Sunday School classrooms in thousands of churches during the early 20th century.
The “Song of the Mystic” describes meeting God in the darkness and silence of a valley.
I walk down the Valley of Silence –
Down the dim voiceless valley – alone!
And I hear not the fall of a footstep
Around me, save God’s and my own;
And the hush of my heart is as holy
As hovers where angels have flown!
Do you ask me the place of the Valley,
Ye hearts that are harrowed by care?
It lieth afar between mountains,
And God and His angels are there;
And one is the dark mount of Sorrow,
And one is the bright mount of Prayer.”
(As a literary work, the imperfect meter, the odd punctuation, and the hackneyed rhymes fails to capture the rich history of mystic contemplation and the “Dark Night of the Soul”.)
The verse is attributed to “Father Ryan” – there may have been many priests of this name in Boston.
The postcard was copyrighted in 1906 and published by M. T. Sheahan of Boston.
We have seen other mottos or inspirational sayings from this firm (along with comic postcards and art scenes:
“A Rule for Life” (1910) and “Words Better Left Unsaid” (1906)
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On the reverse, Olive greets, “My dear Sarah”.
Olive asks, “Do not think that I have forsaken you, for I have not.”
Sarah is assured that Olive is “…still in the land of the living” and that she will “write you later”.
The message was sent “Lovingly”.
Sarah preserved the postcard motto throughout her life, despite an errant postmark on the face.
One hopes that Olive composed promptly a letter, and that the friends exchanged many more postcards.
RESEARCH NOTE
“Sarah Petillon” paid real estate taxes in Dutchess County from the 1890’s through the 1920’s.
There are other persons named “Petillon” who are on tax rolls into the 1960’s.
Sometimes the name appears as “Pettilon”, but I have not yet found genealogical data for any of these names.
