To Mrs. Harry Seaman

Franny Wentzel: 9th Dec 2009 - 02:55 GMT

An addendum - Grace's address was written in a line above the stamp and was as follows...

270 Union Ave - Apt.B. 3 - Rutherford N. J.

CartLegger: 9th Dec 2009 - 12:20 GMT

Awesome post!
A. Never knew that Gov Island was a public attraction prior to 2003.
B. Postcards will never be overtaken for quality communication! I have an Iphone app (Postman) but its just not the same. You can't top the post card! This is the proof in the pudding!

Franny Wentzel: 9th Dec 2009 - 13:48 GMT

In the 1930s Governors Island was an army base - had been since the Revolutionary War. From 1966 to 1996 it was a Coast Guard station.

Presumably, civilians like postcard photographers could and did access the island only by special permission.

Lacey Stewart: 19th Jul 2011 - 23:38 GMT

Bea Seaman was my grandmother! And Grace Scribner was her cousin, I think. How awesome to find this! I'm researching for a road trip up to PA and NY state with my mom. Bea, her husband, Harry, and their son Peter moved to Oak Ridge, TN for the Manhattan Project during WWII, where my grandfather worked as a machinist and my grandmother as a librarian at the local high school.

Lacey Stewart: 20th Jul 2011 - 00:30 GMT

I showed this to my mom and she was so excited! This was from my mom's Aunt Grace, Bea's sister. The postcard refers to Petey-my uncle-not Patsy. My uncle, born in 1934, is handicapped and spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals as a young child. My mother would LOVE to have this postcard, if you would be interested in selling it. Incidentally, she is a postcard collector, so this is really exciting.

Franny Wentzel: 20th Jul 2011 - 06:55 GMT

I really wouldn't want to sell this but if she had the same postcard - you said she was a collector - I'd be willing to make an even trade.

Franny Wentzel: 20th Jul 2011 - 07:15 GMT

I think I've gotten just about all the fun of owning this and would love like blazes to get this back to the original owners just for the amusing life story.

I was hoping to make a post about find a wallet with money - but no ID - and my attempt to return it but it turned out my one lead - a YMCA card - fizzled on account of the card's info being purged from their system, presumably when the owner replaced it.

Contact the site owner - he has my eMail - to arrange a trade... deal... address to send to...

peter@citynoise.org

Lacey Stewart: 27th Jul 2011 - 02:12 GMT

Still trying to get your email from Peter@citynoise...no response. I couldn't find a postcard from Governor's Island as old as the one you have, but I did manage to find one that may be 30-40 years old. I also found a 1910 postcard of the Hippodrome. Would be interesting to know what postcards NY collectors are into, as there may be some desirable ones hiding out down here.

Franny Wentzel: 30th Jul 2011 - 03:57 GMT

To Lacey: Got your forwarded eMail. Sent reply.

For those of you following this at home...

As soon as I get a send-to address I plan to make a copy - on cardstock - for myself and mail off the original.

Franny Wentzel: 12th Aug 2011 - 20:31 GMT

Update for anyone who was tracking this. Sent original card out and got this eMail reply...

Got the card yesterday, thank you so much! I made my mom's day, and mine too. I can't believe how pristine the postcard is-my regular mail doesn't look that clean.

EvilGentleman: 13th Aug 2011 - 06:24 GMT

A piece of family history, repatriated by the largesse of Franny Wentzel and her penchant for posting everything online. The irony of using the internet to retrieve a long-lost postcard is awesome. Old-school and new-school combine to make the world just a little more awesome.

Kind of like how I'm able to search through photographs of over 200 years of my local church's original handwritten records via ancestry.ca and their scanned versions of the famous Drouin photographic collection of Quebec church records made in the 1940's.

Franny Wentzel: 21st Sep 2011 - 19:00 GMT

citynoise.org/article/11139