This comic postcard, featuring a telephone operator making a date for lunch, was not mailed – it was “enclosed”, probably within a letter.

It was given to Bernice Moorehead who was a “telephone girl” in The Dalles.

The Dalles is a city on the Columbia River in northern Oregon – a Native American trading place for centuries, which was used by the first European fur traders for the same purpose.

It is a region with extensive archeological riches.

Bernice received the postcard from H. V. Anderson .

Mr. Anderson had taken a position with the Forest Service and was stationed in Grants Pass.

Grants Pass is a city and county seat in southeast Oregon.

An early location for Hudson Bay Company fur traders, Grants Pass became a stopping point for settlers on the trail into the Williamette Valley.

(Grants Pass was named in honor of U.S. Grant after his stunning military success at Vicksburg.)

On the reverse, Mr. Anderson assures Bernice that he is not making sport of the telephone girls.

He reports that Alvis and his wife are in Grants Pass, but “I stay clear of them”.

We don’t know if the couple deserved the bad reputation they had with Mr. Anderson and Bernice.

Mr. Anderson notes his address, and expresses a hope to hear from Bernice.

They are at the northern and southern borders of the state – it is 328 miles between The Dalles and Grants Pass.

One hopes that they remained friends and correspondents through the early years of the twentieth century.