Miss L. W. Ripley lived in Farmington, a town and county seat of Franklin County in south-central Maine.
Founded in the late 18th century around a sawmill, Farmington was once a major wool-producing region from the sheep farms on the surrounding hills.
Water power led to a great diversification of industry in the mid-19th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmington,_Maine
In July of 1939, Miss Ripley received a postcard from Nell.
The postcard was mailed from Mendota, now a neighborhood near Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin.
In 1947, the post office known as Mendota became “Mendota Branch” of the Madison Post Office – it was moved and renamed entirely in 1954.
https://wfscstamps.org/Clubs/WisconsinPostalHistory/WPHSBulletinNo23.pdf
Madison, the capital of Wisconsin, is located in the south-central region of the State – about 138 miles from Green Bay, Wisconsin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison,_Wisconsin
+ + + + + +
The face of the postcard is a photograph of a statue in white marble entitled, “Spirit of the Northwest”.
The title includes, “Green Bay, Wisconsin” and the statue is found on the lawn of the Brown County Courthouse in that city.
After the American Revolution the “Northwest Territory” was the name given to the area of former British domination in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Territory
This area had been inhabited by indigenous peoples for millennia, had been explored by French missionaries and fur traders, had been the site of armed clashes between rival European powers and with tribes for a century before the birth of the US.
A blurb identifies the figures in the statue group:
- Fr. Claude Allouez who established the Mission of St. Francis Xavier at the Rapides des Peres in 1671.
- Nicolas Perrot, Builder and Commander of Fort Saint Francis in 1684, and first French Governor of the region.
- An unnamed Outagamie tribesman who held the Fox River area against French domination in the 18th century.
The statue was created by Michigan sculptor Sidney Bedore (1881-1955), and erected in 1931.
The postcard was first published by the City News Depot of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
The image was printed by “C. T. American Art” of Chicago.
+ + + + + +
On the reverse, Nell has written a newsy message – but I can interpret very little of her handwriting.
The message begins without a greeting; the salutation might have revealed something about Nell’s relationship to Miss Ripley.
Nell reports that she was “Happy to get your letter” and makes an illegible reference to their current situation.
The July heat is extreme – Nell writes that “the north side of the house is 98 degrees at 2 p.m.” with “humidity at 90 percent at 7 a.m.”
Nell found that “The last two weeks have been fearful”.
“Everything has been so ____ and dry” that Nell is not wearing silk hose.
I cannot interpret her exact words, but it appears that she is “not wearing any hose”.
There is a reference to family, and Nell concludes her message with “Love”.
One hopes that Nell endured the scorching summer heat and maintained a long postcard correspondence with Miss Ripley.
