Sepia Saturday 79 - Saturday 18 June 2011

Welcome everybody from sailing ships and waving sailors to beach side parties of one or more.....we are leaving New York City (or so Alan predicted for this day) and sailing across the great Atlantic Ocean......for Sepia Saturday. 

Alan's theme photo is of two very fashionable ladies (quite the upper crust of high society) looking far too over dressed for any beach, but people did dress classier with flair in the old days......didn't they?  Often covering much more skin than exposing it for sure!

If you want to follow along with your own creation of water, beach and sand oh my......or something else from back in the day long, long ago...then go here

http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2011/06/sepia-saturday-79-saturday-18-june-2011.html

Lake Calhoun, Minneapolis in about 1911 -courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

When the ocean is too far away, a day at the lake will do just fine!  Everyone here is dressed as well as the ladies in Sepia Saturday's theme photo and they are all ready for fun in the sun!

Alan's Sepia Saturday photo was taken at the Atlantic City Beach in about 1905.

The Old and New Light House by night, Cape Henry, Virginia

In 1798 Benjamin Latrobe (designed United States Capital) described Cape Henry as "an octangular truncated pyramid of eight sides, rising 90 feet to the light."  The New Cape Henry built 1881 was fully automated in 1983 and remains in use today.

This Old Cape Henry Light House is less than 250 miles away from Alan's Atlantic City Beach photo and no doubt in the opposite direction of his ship.  Many majestic lighthouses have been abandoned or replaced with clever devices from the latest of technologies, and those that are lucky enough still stand tall today.  Located just down the Atlantic coast and situated (per the description on this postcard) at the entrance of Chesapeake Bay it was erected in 1690 and used about two hundred years until the new lighthouse was built in the later part of the nineteenth Century.  Surely this particular lighthouse won’t be guiding Alan’s ship by any means but in it’s glory days the Old Cape Henry Light House guided ships, saved lives, showed the way for many a stranded and weary sailor and no doubt stimulated the economy. 

I was happy to see that the person selling this postcard was kind enough to translate it for us all!
Here is the other side ...

It was written and mailed in 1919 on January 26th at 10L10 A.M. in Norfolk, VA.

This next post card comes from the same collection but I believe it was created in Verdenspostfureningen (Union Postale Universelle) Brevkort -- Carte Postale Danmark and mailed to Mrs. Carl Jensen in Hopkins, Minnesota. Per backside.

This is a true sepia post card, with a damsel in distress perhaps, or maybe not but surely a ship in the distance across this vast ocean....mailed also in 1919.

Minnesota being what it was then as well as today is known for having over 10,000 lakes, and
spending any day at the lake was heavenly..

This postcard is of "car campers" at the town's tourist park, in Ely, Minnesota about 1935.
These boys were lucky that their families owned both a fine working vehicle and a tent to soak up the summer sunshine...take in a little swimming and catch some fish too!

I know there's a lot of driving on the public beaches in Florida, but it's not so common in Minnesota, yet back in 1912 when this photo was taken at Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis
they parked their cars almost in the water.

There were many that arrived at the lake by streetcar or on foot while others drove soft-top vehicles from upscale sedans to modest Model T's where they could fit four comfortably.  Canoes and waders filled the lake and strollers with laughing babies and ladies with their large hats and parasols mingled with swimmers and youngsters on the shoreline.  - courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society.

Moving right along to a beach side resort...

Wildwood Amusement Park in Mahtomedi, Minnesota, in the background water shute and diving platform in the early 1900's.  During good weekends up to a thousand people flocked to Wildwood, located at White Bear Lake.

It wasn't always about the sandy beach and catching the incoming waves, but more for yesterday's boating and the comfort of canoeists relaxing with music from their portable phonographs handily placed "amidships" for ease of operation and hearing....it was quite a special date if you were lucky enough to be asked along!

"Anyone have an umbrella...the sun is mighty hot!"-courtesy Minnesota Historical Society

Thanks for letting me share another moment in Sepia Saturday.....