More From the Brewers

More from the Brewers of Ohio.  This is the third postcard I've found from this traveling family.  This one is addressed to "F.A. Brewer, 623 N. St. Clair, Painsville, Ohio"  I've managed to confirm that F.A. Brewer is Frank A. Brewer, born in Painsville, Ohio on May 30, 1891.  There were quite a few Brewers born at about the same time.  But who sent this postcard?  The message, "Feeling fine.  Had good milk. Children good, not tired, getting in Chicago.  Will write soon.  C.B."  And added latter, "10 P.M. getting on train in Chicago."  Not exactly florid prose.  C.B. could be Frank's sister Carrie  or perhaps Frank's wife.  Impossible to tell.  The card was postmarked "CHICAGO ILL OCT 9 1928"  If C.B. and the kids were on their way to Painsville, did they beat the postcard?

Click on Brewer in the labels section to bring up the other cards.

The Flying Family and One Really Creepy Doll

When I was growing up in the sixties and seventies, magazines from Life, and Look to Popular Mechanics predicted that one day the United States would be a country where it would be common for people to own small planes, personal helicopters, and one day the flying car, capable of rolling down the highway and bypassing traffic with the quick flip of a switch that would deploy the wings. Well, I'm still waiting for my flying car. The horizontal format photo with all the people standing in front of a plane is dated "1932." The picture with the "GULF" logo is labeled, "David & Arla, Nogales, AZ 1939." Gulf oil was once one of the largest oil companies in the United States before it was bought out by ARCO. The four adults with the child on the wing, "Shirley, Wesley, Nogales, AZ 1939 Alice, Helen, Emory." Possible it's mislabeled, but there was a time when Shirley, was a far more common man's name than a woman's, so if Shirley is one of the men, the sex balance is restored. The little boy has a toy airplane as would be expected with this flying family. Labeled, "Aug 7, 1937. Robert-3 years. Rafer ranch." Please tell me that the baby carriage picture is a very creepy doll. If not, that's one very weird looking kid. Labeled, "May 1935 Nogales, Ariz." Nothing written on the trio of people, the man in the flying helmet and goggles the old lady and the other man, but stamped on the back, "GUARANTEED FOR LIFE THIS IS A GENUINE BORDER Fox Tone PICTURE. MADE BY FOX COMPANY, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS. COPYRIGHTED 1927 BY CARL P. NEWTON." Nogales is on the U.S./ Mexico border and before the interstate highway was built it would have been one hell of a drive over dirt roads, impassable during the summer monsoon rains. Flying might have been the only real mobility these people knew.

Camp Florence, Arizona

Written on the back of the photo, "Taken at Florence Arizona prisoner of war camp, 1945. Mrs Sam Bluhen & Mrs Charles E. De Saro" During World War 2, there was a prisoner of war camp near the Arizona town of Florence. Florence was named for the Italian city. The camp held Italian and German prisoners of war.