Postcard Friendship Friday #7

Band Concert, Belle Isle, Detroit Michigan

Happy Postcard Friendship Friday! Today's postcard was postmarked on March 4, 1917 and pictures a scene from Belle Isle, a Detroit City park located in the middle of the Detroit River.
.

Known as Wah-na-be-zee(Swan Island) to the Chippewa and Ottawa Native American tribes, today Belle Isle reflects the late 19th century movement to create metropolitan parks begun in Paris and emulated in America by landscape architects like Frederic Law Olmsted.
.

Ownership of these six hundred acres in the Detroit River passed over time to the French and then to the British before ending up with American settlers. The city of Detroit finally acquired the island, whose name had changed from Hog Island to Belle Isle in the middle of the century, in 1879.

.
Soon citizens were calling on the city to create a public park on Belle Isle that would emulate the parks and tree-lined boulevards of Paris. In 1883, the city secured the services of Frederick Law Olmsted, the prominent landscape architect and planner responsible for famous urban parks in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Boston. After Olmsted's design was completed, other buildings were slowly added to the island.

.

Canadian Geese at Belle Isle (This picture is for Shelly and Sandy)

.

The most famous structure on Belle Isle is undoubtedly the Aquarium and Horticulture Building. Inspired by the Naples aquarium, the firm of Nettleton & Kahn designed a building with a highly articulated brickwork facade, copper roof, and a huge interior space to hold the great aquariums, where diverse marine habitats are displayed.

.

Conservatory

.

The Horticulture building, also called the Conservatory, includes a fernery and a tropical plants sections, and is surrounded by three acres of formal gardens, lily ponds and greenhouses.
.

Orchids, bromiliads and other tropical plants

.

Another noted building is the Belle Isle Casino, designed by Albert Kahn in 1908. Once said to be the finest casino in the United States, ornate towers frame the building's four corners, and verandas provide picnickers with shelter.

.

Casino

.

A beautiful public park of memorials, fountains, athletic fields, man made lagoons, and dramatic buildings, Belle Isle is a green oasis near the city's center.

.

The beautiful Scott's fountain

.

Circa 1934, this is just one of thousands of pictures taken with Scott's fountain as a backdrop

.
My family and I made many trips to Belle Isle. We went ice skating on the canals in the winter, swam in the Detroit River in the summer and enjoyed concerts, picnics and all that the pretty island had to offer.

.

The postcard was mailed from Detroit to St. Louis, Mo, while the Big War, WWI was still being fought.

It reads:

Detroit, Michigan
March 4, 1917
.
Say you folks down there has some of those St. Louis Germans killed you all or what the dickens is the matter you don't write. We have all been sick, one of the worst winters I ever saw. Some of us down all the time. Nothing but cold and snow. How is that big boy Chas. those girls and and Jack. Write soon.
.
Your brother Clarence.
204 Antietam Street, Detroit.
.


The street Clarence lived on was just about 3 miles from Bell Isle. It no longer exists, and was probably razed on the 1950's to make way for the Chrysler Freeway. The address in St. Louis still exists.
.
The back Story:
.
Clarence, heh, heh, the big kidder, is trying to get a rise out of his sister Bohemia Mae. He took the trolley over to the casino on Belle Isle to buy this post card. He would like Bohemia to pick up her PDA and text her favorite peep.
.
Bohemia is lax in her writing as she is very involved with the war effort. She volunteers at the local USO at the Civic Center three afternoons a week. She fills cups with fruit punch and plays patriotic songs on the flute. Sometimes she takes the kids along. That big boy Chas. recites "Hiawatha" and "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and the girls, Gertie and Millie hand out home made butter cake with boiled icing and sing "Goin' Down By That Wide River" in two part harmony.
.
Bohemia is not concerned about "all the sick " people that Clarence is writing about as she knows very well he lives alone and has multiple personalities. Dinner table conversation with him is just impossible and makes her heart race until she fears she will faint dead away. She and her mother contrived the story that Clarence was adopted so as not to ruin Bohemia's chances of finding herself a husband. A.J. fell for it - and Bohemia - hook line and sinker.

.

For more Postcard Friendship Friday fun stop by and visit our PFF hostess, Marie at Voila! Vintage Postcards!
.

*********************

I would like to say Thank You! To Cynthia at Oasis Writing Link (OWL) for this beautiful Premio Dardos award!

.

Cynthia's blog, in her own words is "a place for commentary about life and culture in Puerto Rico and beyond; experiences with yoga, and literature -spiced with a strong dash of appreciation for nature, art, film and music. " It is a delightfully interesting blog. Stop by and say hello!
.