If it were 1936 and I were Janice, a person who had been away from home for some period of time, and I had a message that “we expect to be home on Fri. or Sat. of next week,” I guess I would buy five copies of the same Genuine Curteich postcard and write the same message.
Well, it is not 1936 and I am not Janice.
There is no clue as to who Janice was, but we know what she did to let her friends know that she expected to be home on Friday or Saturday of next week.
Early in the day, probably a week or two before school would reopen in the fall, Janice set off for the nearest store that sold Curteich postcards and bought at least five copies of the same postcard. She may have found a deal, like six for a nickel; more on that later.
This is one of the five. It probably caught Janice’s eye because the caption on the card came close to the messages she wanted to send home to Pennsylvania.
Then, likely after she arrived wherever she had been for the summer, she sat down, took her fountain pen from her purse, and wrote five inane messages to five friends telling them she had no ambition for answering their letters, how nice the weather had been, and what a nice summer it was.
Four of Janice’s friends lived in Hatboro, Pennsylvania, a politically independent borough in Montgomery County – part of the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area, known for its small-town feel and history in manufacturing hats. The Pennypack Creek flows through the town and a passenger rail line connects it to Philadelphia.
Four of the five people to whom Janice intended to mail her cards lived within walking distance of each other. Gertie Best lived one block from Jean Leapold, and Sara Cline lived six doors from Jean Leapold. The Becher Family lived three blocks from the Leapolds. The fifth card was addressed to a Miss Strowsky in Hartsville, Pennsylvania – 3.5 miles away.
The sixth card that may have been a nickel’s worth bonus is this one. Another appropriate caption titles this card.
There is one thing Janice didn’t do but should have. She apparently forgot to buy stamps. If she made such a purchase and mailed her cards, they would have arrived at the addresses on the cards instead of in a collection of old Curteich linens at Postcard History.net.
***
So what about Hatboro? It is a 1.5 square mile town that was established in 1715 and named after an early resident’s profession. John Dawson was a hat maker.
The town has a second distinction of some interest; it is the only town in America that has its only school on a former battlefield. The Crooked Billet Elementary School is named after a Revolutionary War battle that was fought on May 11, 1787, near the Crooked Billet Tavern in what is now Hatboro.
Hatboro is also the home of Pennsylvania’s third oldest library.
and proudly boasts of being the home of the oldest mill along Pennypack Creek.
Hatboro may also brag about hosting George Washington and his troops multiple times during the Revolution.