Miss Iva Botsford lived in Livingston, a small city in south central Montana.
Livingston was a railroad town, developed with the coming of the Northern Pacific Railroad.
Steam locomotives were serviced in Livingston before climbing the Bozeman Pass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livingston,_Montana
In September of 1909, Miss Botsford received a postcard greeting from her friend, Agnese.
(“Agnese” is the Italian form of Agnes, and it is possible that Agnese was from an Italian family.)
Agnese mailed the postcard from Anaconda, a city in west-central Montana.
Anaconda was founded by Marcus Daly, one of the “Copper Kings”, as a center for smelting copper ore from the mines near Butte.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda,_Montana
Livingston is more than 130 miles east of Anaconda, although the towns were connected by rail.
The face of the postcard bears a lovely drawing of pink flowers.
Beneath the blossoms is a rough verse in praise of Anaconda.
This place is “the best on the line”, and boasts of the best residents – “the girls are pretty, the boys are fine”.
The bright postcard was printed in Germany.
On the reverse, we learn that Agnese has been waiting for a letter from Iva.
Agnese has questions about Ethel, and she asks twice for Iva to write and “tell me all the news”.
We learn that Agnese has “started school today”, which I interpret to mean that Agnese has returned to school.
While she may be a schoolgirl, Agnese does not seem to be a child.
One hopes that Iva composed the overdue letter, that Agnese was pleased by the news, and that the friends maintained a correspondence for many years.
