A March Message From May

BY KRISTIN BEUSCHER SPECIAL TO PASCACK PRESS PARK RIDGE

INTHEEARLY 20th century, nearly 100 years before email and texting would become the publicʼs preferred way to write to friends and relations, postcards were enormously popular for drafting a quick note.

The postcard above shows Park Ridgeʼs Century Hook & Ladder firehouse as it looked 120 years ago; we see it at right in a modern image.

Formed in 1900, Century Hook & Ladder was one of three volunteer firefighting companies in Park Ridge in the early 20th century. The firehouse stood on Broadway between Roland and Perryland Streets. The three fire companies merged in 1924, but a century later Hook & Ladderʼs firehouse is still standing at 85 Broadway as a retail building. While the structure has seen many modern changes, the original stonework remains as a wonderful reminder of its past.

Postmarked March 25, 1907, the postcardʼs message reads, “Your card of ʻStone Bridgeʼwas very pretty. Many thanks. Glad you like the ʻGlen.ʼ Will send you another view of the Glen sometime.”

The postcard was mailed from Park Ridge by local resident May Doerries. May was one of five children of German-born Ferdinand Doerries, a Park Ridge farmer, and wife Katharine. At the time of the 1910 census, 37-year-old May was single, living with her family, and working as a clerk at a life insurance company She would later marry for the first time, at age 47, to 50-year-old Harry Miller, an insurance salesman.

In the first decade of the 20th century, May frequently exchanged postcards with a young man in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Based on Mayʼs writing, which never delves into personal topics, it seems likely they came into contact through one of the postcard trad- ing clubs that were so popular at the time. May sent him many postcards of Park Ridge scenes, and she received shots of Milwaukee in return.

Collectors often refer to the period between 1905 and 1915 as the Golden Age of Postcards. Hundreds of scenes from the Pascack Valley were committed to postcards,

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