George Ekblaw and the Bananas

  

When possible, I like to do a little research on the images I post, and this one has a fair amount of info that I was able to run down.  To start with, the card's original photo is credited to "A. HIRSCHWITZ, NEW ORLEANS. LA."  I wasn't able to find any biographical details on the man's life, but I was able to find quite a few postcards credited to him, all published by 'THE CURT TEICH @ CO. CHICAGO."  Whether he was a freelancer who specialized in postcards or an employee of Curt Teich, well, I wasn't able to find any info on that.

There was a message written on the back, "I am seeing the sights at first hand.  Lordy here-azaleas, camelias, oleander in bloom.  I may see you-I will stop off at Mother E's on my way back. KJ has left for Florida to day.  Sunday we made a side trip to Biloxi.  Regards to all. AE."  

The card is addressed to "Dr & Mrs George Ekblaw, 511 W. Main Str, Urbana, Ill."  The postmark, "NEW ORLEANS LA, FEB 6, 11 AM., 1939"  

So, this is where it gets interesting.  I found a memorial page for the life of George Elbert Ekblaw, of Urbana, IL, published by the University of Illinois.  I'm only going to hit the highlights, so for those interested in more detail, it's easy to find online.  George Ekblaw was born in 1895 and died in 1972.  He was a veteran of World War 1, and after returning from Europe, he taught school for a few years, and eventually got degrees in engineering and geology from the University of Illinois.  After getting his degrees, he joined the Illinois State Geological Survey's Engineering and Geology Section.  It looks like it was his job to work on dams, roads, and tunnels.  I assume it was his specific task to survey the underlying geology for state projects.  He also found time to map the glacial moraines of Illinois and write at least one book on the geology of Illinois. He married Emma Josephine Nyberg and fathered at least one son, Andrew Ekblaw II, also a graduate of the University of Illinois, and also an engineer, though he moved to New York State and worked for G.E.  Andrew was born in 1933 and died in 2016.  If Andrew was the person who sent this card, he was all of six years old, so despite the initials, I'm thinking it was another Ekblaw. 

And the caption, "New Orleans, is the world's greatest banana port, more than 700 ships arrive each year loaded with 25,000 to 50,000 bunches of bananas.  Each individual bunch of bananas is carried from the hold of the ship to the door of the refrigerator car on mechanical conveyors."  Also, "NEW ORLEANS-AMERICA'S MOST INTERESTING CITY."  I'm not sure about that one.  I've been to New Orleans, as well as some other very interesting American cities. 

Queen Elizabeth

That's her in the funny hat.  Actually, this one is captioned, "R.M.S. QUEEN ELIZABETH. Nassau. Cruise of 1965."  We are not amused.

Victoria, B.C.

I purchased this card on EBay.  The seller had two versions of this image, this one, and a real photo postcard.  I bid on both in hope that I could post them and show how card publishers used black & white photos to make color postcards.  Unfortunately, I only won this one.  Published by "Barber Bros., Victoria, B.C." 

Mobile Defense

If my translation is correct, that bit of type on the top of the card reads, Algeria, the admiralty and the mobile defense.  This card was published by "LEVY ET NEURDEIN REUNIS."   Levy and Neurdein was in business from 1920 to 1932.  It was a company that was formed when Levy & Sons merged with Neurdein et Cie.  Algeria, of course, was once part of France.  My guess is that the patrol boats seen in this card were part of the French equivalent of the coast guard.  There was once a major French naval base at Mers-a-Kebir on the Algerian coast.  After the fall of France, and the formation of non occupied France, the British government demanded that the French fleet in north Africa head to England and join in the fight against the Germans.  When Admiral Darlan of the Vichy government declined but promised that the French fleet would never be surrendered to the Nazis, Churchill ordered an attack that sank the fleet, killing thousands of French sailors.  Latter, when the Germans tried to seize the rest of the French fleet at Toulon,  Darlan ordered the scuttling of his ships. 

Now, for a movie recommendation,  The Battle of Algiers.  It'll help explain why Algeria is no longer part of France.

An Ocean Voyage

I've crossed the English Channel a couple of times, been to Catalina, and taken the ferry between Port Angeles and Victoria half a dozen times or more. I've never crossed an ocean by ship, and I regret having been born after the days of trans Atlantic liners.  From the twenties I would think.

S. S. Alcoa Pennant

It's not often that I get to post something with an exact date, but I can with this one.  The Alcoa Pennant was launched on June 6, 1941.  She was built by Consolidated Steel at their shipyards in Wilmington, California.   The ship was built for The Alcoa Steamship Company and was supposed to transport bauxite, but World War 2 changed all that.  After completion, including the addition of deck guns, on January 26, 1942, the Alcoa Pennant was put on indefinite charter by the U.S. Navy, and despite her slow speed, and time spent in war zones, manged to survive the conflict.  She was scrapped in Mobile, Alabama in May, 1965.

Mildred Takes A Trip 3

It doesn't look like Mildred keeps her album in a nice, easy to follow format.  In our first two posts, she bounced around from California, to Arizona, and back to California again.   Her rambling ways continue with this post.  The top photo makes some sense if she was, in fact, going between Arizona and the Pacific fleet at San Diego.  To me, it looks a lot like the Imperial sand dunes, in California, right up against the Mexican border.  The Algodones Dunes, to use the proper name, is a large sandy area that's pretty much on a straight line between Phoenix and San Diego.  When these pictures were taken, I-80 wasn't even a dream in some road planers eye.  There were a couple of recently paved roads (They replaced old fashioned plank roads.) and a Southern Pacific rail line that carried both freight and passengers.  So why am I linking the Pacific coast and Phoenix?  Well, there's no coast in Arizona, and the Pacific is the closest ocean, and that bottom photo, well that location I recognize.  It's Roosevelt Dam (Theodore, not Franklin.) in the mountains north and east of Phoenix on the Salt River.  It was started in 1902 and finished in 1915.  On completion, it was the world's largest masonry dam, and Lake Roosevelt was the largest reservoir.

Click on Mildred's Album for more views.

Mildred Takes A Trip 2

Back on the battleship, and I think I might know which battleship.  Could it be the U.S.S. California?  Click on the ships name in labels, and you can pull up a postcard of the Cali in all her glory.  And if it's not the California, it's clearly a ship of the same design.  As far as the other two photos, one's obviously somewhere along the California coastline.  The San Diego area might be a good bet.  After all, that's where the fleet was, but then again, it sure looks like the mouth of Ballona Creek near modern day Marina del Rey.  I don't ride my bike out to the coast too often, but there's a bike path along the shore, and the shape of the  ridge line in the background looks like it could be it.  Of course, with the way the California coast has been carpeted with building after building, it might be impossible to match an old photo to a modern landscape.  The bottom photo is Arizona, south of Ajo, in what is now Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.  It's the only place in the world they grow.

Click on Mildred's Album in labels to see the whole thing.

Mildred Takes A Trip 1

I've had very mixed feelings about posting Mildred's photo album.  This one's a bit different for me.  I didn't buy it for the photos, I bought it for the album itself.  It's very small, let's say  little bigger than a postcard, and the pictures are a very odd sort, some interesting, and some not so much.  Too, while most photo album are easy to disassemble, making it easier to scan the images, that isn't the case with this one.  I was afraid to untie the leather ribbon, and I was also afraid to open the album and lay it out flat on the scanner.  In the end, I took the risk, bent it open and scanned.  Finally, there's only one photo per page, so there won't be any full page scans to show position.

I suspect that Mildred was the photographer and isn't seen in any of the photos, but I like to think that that is wrong, and that Mildred is the young lady in the center of the first snapshot.  Another guess, Mildred and her family have taken a trip to see a son and brother who was in the United States Navy.  That tower in the background is clearly from a battleship.  It's the second photo that I really like.  Two people are well hidden behind the flowers while maybe Mildred is off to the side, clearly visible.

More to come, click on Mildred's album in labels to see the rest.  At least, once I get them posted.

Cruising In Luxury

 

Alright, the bottom picture is kind of crappy, but I don't like to edit stuff from collections, even small ones.  As a matter of fact, the top two photos aren't that great, and the color restoration setting clearly has some limitations, but....

One of our local radio stations (Local is Los Angeles.) has an ask the mayor show.  I was on my way out the door, I was getting ready to turn off the radio, and the last thing I heard was that one of the questions for that day was about ferry service between Ventura and L.A.   To a lot of people that will seem like a daft idea, but I say why not?  As a matter of fact, I think an L.A.-Ventura connection isn't ambitious enough.

 As the population of our state increases, as the need to get around grows, it only makes sense to add boat traffic to the mix.  If I need to get to San Diego from Los Angeles, I'd rather take the light rail to the Santa Monica pier and a coastal ferry to San Diego than sit on the I-15.  Yes, I know, there's already trains, planes, and buses, but why not add sea travel into the mix.  Hey, L.A. to San Francisco, Oakland to Eureka or Crescent City, it all makes sense to me.

I know what some people will say.  "Won't it be expensive?"  We subsidize mass transit, Amtrak, and if it ever gets built, we'll subsidize high speed rail, so I don't see  the difference.

All pictures dated "WEEK OF OCT. 25-58 RN"

Women At Sea

I purchased this one here, in southern California, so there's a good chance that this photo was taken on the run to Catalina Island.  There was a time when there was  passenger service between Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Mexico.  I don't know about anyone else, but I'd love to get a coastal steamer to the Bay Area.  Driving, the train, or flying all work fine, but sitting on the deck of a ship would be a great way to get around.

She's a Bear

I don't know when this postcard was made, but I, at least, have a date range on when the photo was taken.  Construction began on the U.S.S. California in 1916, after the beginning of World War 1, but a year or so before  U.S. entry into the conflict.  She wasn't launched until 1919, so the California  didn't see any action in the war to end all wars.  After being commissioned, the California became the flagship of America's Pacific Fleet.  I wasn't able to find out when she lost that status, but I do know the California was one of the battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor.  She was raised and repaired enough that she was able to steam to  Bremerton, Washington, under her own power, for a complete refit.  There, her two funnels were combined in a single stack, and her superstructure was completely redesigned.  Since this photo shows a ship with twin funnels, clearly it was taken between 1919 and 1941. The California returned to active duty in 1944, missing most of the war in the Pacific.  She did see service during the American invasion of the Philippines, but was severely damaged by a kamikaze hit, which meant another return to the west coast for more repairs.  The California was back on duty for the invasion of Okinawa.  After the war ended, unable to fit through the Panama Canal, The California made a trip around the southern tip of Africa to the east coast of the United States, where she was transferred to the reserve list in 1946.  She was decommissioned in 1947 and sold for scrap in 1959.  One of the things learned in World War 2 was that the age of battleships was over.  Naval warfare would now be dominated by submarines, aircraft carriers and smaller ships.  Despite all the money and time spent to build, repair, and refit the California, she never played a truly significant part in any war.  

A Speed Trial Scene

This is not a commercial postcard.  Some sailor, stationed on an unknown warship, took a photo and had a postcard made up for his own use.  What, no patriot act violation?  No damage done to national security?  No classified image in need of censoring?   Hard to believe, but there was a time when soldiers and sailors took pictures and sent them home for all to see.

Here's a fun fact.  One of the most influential men in world history was an American naval officer named Alfred Thayer Mahan.  Who?  Mahan was an instructor at the Untied States Naval Academy at Annapolis.  While there, he gave a series of lectures that he latter published as a book called, "The Influence of Sea Power on World History, 1660-1783."  Mahan's thesis was that great nations could only exist through sea power.  Specifically he cited the British Empire.  His book was read and studied all over the world.

 One of  Thayer's many disciples was Kaiser Wilhelm 2.  Germany, as a unified nation, didn't exist before the Franco-Prussian War.  The first Kaiser Wilhelm, and his chancellor, Otto von Bismark, saw Germany as a continental power, an industrial nation with an army so  large and powerful,  that  other European countries would think twice before challenging German might.  Willy the second read Mahan and dreamed of a large and modern fleet of warships, spanning the globe, acquiring colonies.  The British weren't exactly in love with  the growing German fleet, so they increased the size and power of their fleet.  And, an arms race was on.  There were other factors, of course, but the growing distrust between the two nations was one of the causes of World War 1, which, of course, led to World War 2, the rise of the Soviet state, and a whole lot of other problems that we're still dealing with.  I'd recommend Dreadnought by Robert K. Massie for far more info than I'm willing to type.

And in the United States.  Think naval expansion and the Great White Fleet, sent around the world by President Theodore Roosevelt as a sign of American power.  I suspect the ship in this card might have been part of that fleet.

Relax

Written on the back, "Now who says I didn't take it easy coming over?  Every second and never had such a quiet relaxed time.  Hope on next trip will be with You & Chaty to Manilla?  Why not?"  It might be difficult to relax with Chaty along.  Of course, Chaty might be short for something other than Chatty. and since Manila is misspelled.....well, who knows.

ERSONS

Yes I know.  It's actually persons, as in lifeboat capacity.  Was this couple out for a stroll on the deck, or were they checking out the boats, just in case.  Maybe they saw A Night To Remember, the best Titanic movie ever made, just before boarding ship.

Cherbourg

This one's labeled "Ferry tender at Cherbourg."  I have no way of knowing, but I hope this photo is from the twenties, the years when the lost generation, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, and many other Americans headed of to Paris to become writers, painters, or drunks.  An era I wish I had seen.

Now, for a bit of shameless self promotion.  Every so often I pick up a few non photographic bits of ephemera.  I also find images from the net that I enjoy visiting from time to time. (Considering my background and interests, it's no surprise that those images are mostly photographs.)  To make things easy, I've put them up on another blog, www.fairuse-wjy.blogspot.com.  For those who have enjoyed this nautically themed post, in the past few months, I've put up an activities schedule from an Italian ocean liner, a passenger list from The Matson Lines, and a nineteenth century oil painting of a S.F. Bay ferry.

On The Bay

Written on the back, "San Rafael Ferry 9/15/50"

It's been a long time since I've visited San Francisco, but back when I could afford the gas, I'd drive to Dublin, get on the BART, and take the train.  Who, in their right mind, would drive into SF?  Madness.

Anyway, near as I can tell, if you want to get to San Francisco, from San Rafael, on a ferry, you have to drive to Larkspur.  Not always true.  I got tired of the research, so I never found an end date for direct service, but ferry service from San Rafael to both San Francisco and the east bay, goes back to the late nineteenth century.  I found a great oil painting of a steamboat, that was part of that early service, on Wikipedia, and liked it so much that I posted it on my Fair Use blog.  If anyone's interested.

I don't know him!

Written on the front, lower, border, "Southampton-Taking train for London."  Written on the back, "I don't know him!  He must have been standing at next compartment.  Boat comes up to dock on left, and so-to London."

Southampton has been a major British port for centuries.  It's been a hub for passenger ships since the nineteenth century.  When this picture was taken, it was also a ferry port, connecting England with Europe.

On the Sea, On the Sea, On the Beautiful Sea

And I can't remember the next line from the song.  With the open deck seating, this has to be a photograph of a ferry.  Purchased in southern California, it's probable that it's a Catalina Island run, but it could be from the bay area or even the east coast.  Also, take a look at the pier in the background.  The steel pillars in the upper left corner could be some sort of amusement ride.  I know ships docked at the Santa Monica Pier, and at one time the water, that close to shore, was so clean that boat passengers would throw coins in the water, and kids would dive for them.  At least that was a story told to me by a very old man which may or may not be true.  I want to believe it, but I have my doubts.

Rivers, Lakes and Oceans, The Travelers Collection

I admit to a certain amount of OCD in my personality.  The fact is, every time I buy one of these small collections, there  are a few less than interesting photos.  But in the end, it drives me crazy if I don't publish every last image.  So some generic scenery.

The top photo is dated, "June 1950"  Number two in the column, "1956 Iowa, Clear Lake."  The rest are all complete mysteries, so if anyone can identify the locations, I'll be grateful for the help.

It's time to leave this collection for awhile.  Sooner or latter I'll return to it and add some more photos.  As always, click on travelers collection in labels to bring up everything to date.