Postcard story from New York – “MEMORIAL DAY 1931 ~ THIS IN MEMORY OF OUR FOLKS WHO HAVE GONE AHEAD”

Endwell, New York, June 1, 1:00pm, 1931

Woolworth and Municipal Bldgs. from Brooklyn Bridge, New York.

To: Mrs. H. A. Knapp

Waverly

Pa.

“Memorial Day 1931 This in Memory of our Folks who have gone ahead. How sweet to think of them! The day’s Celebration here has been a trail of planes from the Endicott landing place. Sure “Love can never lose it’s own.” H.K.__”

The card is addressed to Mrs. Henry Alonzo Knapp, actual name Anna Dutilleul (b.1870, d.1954.)

Her husband Henry A. Knapp (b.1851, d. 1931 the year this card was written) started as a filing clerk in Pennsylvania and rose to become a prominent lawyer who, in 1899, established the borough of Vandling in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, Vandling has a population of 751.

The ‘Endicott landing-place’ refers to a landing strip that was to become the Tri-Cities Endicott Airport, established in 1936.

The poetic quote: “Love can never lose it’s own” is from a poem entitled “Snowbound/Firelight” by influential American Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier.

“…Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,

(Since He who knows our need is just,)

That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.

Alas for him who never sees

The stars shine through his cypress-trees!

Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,

Nor looks to see the breaking day

Across the mournful marbles play!

Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,

The truth to flesh and sense unknown,

That Life is ever lord of Death,

And Love can never lose its own!”

To read the full fitting Memorial day poem “Snowbound” click: http://www.bartleby.com/248/222.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow-Bound