Young Clifford Receives a Comic Postcard – Oil City, PA (1917)

Master Clifford Huff lived in Rocky Grove, PA, a small community adjoining the larger village of Franklin in Northwest Pennsylvania.

Just a few miles away was Oil City, PA, the heart of the petroleum industry in the Commonwealth.

Although the settlements in this corner of Pennsylvania (just east of Cleveland, Ohio) were first related to the iron industry, after the discovery of oil in 1861, the area was dominated by oil.

The corporate headquarters of Pennzoil, Quaker State Oil, and Wolf’s Head Motor Oil were all located in Oil City.

“Master” was a form of address commonly applied to boys younger than 12, so I assume that Clifford was still a boy in 1917.

On February 3, Wayne S. sent a postcard to Clifford asking “how are you and what are you doing these nice cold days.”

Wayne adds, “I suppose you have got all your snow packed up for summer”.

(The storage of ice, packed in sawdust or other insulation, in ice houses is a practice almost forgotten today.)

The postcard, printed in the wartime USA, is a comic card involving a child’s humorous response to an old man’s query about the bee.

These comic cards were enormously popular, although I have not collected many examples of them.

One hopes that Clifford and Wayne endured the cold winter and delighted in the Spring of 1917.