I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

For any who want more, complete list of all posts by month since 2011

  • Post Cards From The Heart – Greetings From Jamestown


    The leather post card on the front of the tattered photo album should have been a clue indicating the significance of the Jamestown Exposition in the life of Bessie and Luke, but it took me several days of pouring through the photos to figure it out.   Duh.

    The Jamestown Exposition was held from April 26 to December 1, 1907 at Sewell’s Point in Norfolk, Virginia.   It was one of many expositions popular at the turn of the twentieth century and was a celebration of the 300-year anniversary of the initial landing in Virginia by the English colonists.   Unfortunately, it was a financial disaster for its supporters and a cultural disappointment tainted with racial conflicts.   Attendance eventually reached 3 million visitors and included President Theodore Roosevelt and Mark Twain who came as a replacement for former President Grover Cleveland as a guest of honor on Robert Fulton Day.   President Roosevelt spoke on Georgia Day, June 10, 1907, on the steps of the Georgia Building.   Although Bessie purchased a post card marking that historic event at the Exposition, she didn’t arrive until three months later.

    In spite of the negative press and rumors surrounding the Jamestown Exposition, Luke and Bessie chose it for the first stop of their honeymoon trip.   The wedding date remains a mystery, but this trip is certainly the honeymoon.  More than 100 post cards in her album describe the trip of her lifetime.   Luke and Bessie, she wrote on almost every one of the cards that she used to carefully preserve her memories of the adventure.   September 26, 1907…the first day.

    The displays of two squadrons of ships remained one of the most popular sites throughout the Exposition and Bessie bought several post cards of the remarkable water exhibits to remind her of the sight.  The displays influenced a number of important visitors from Washington, D.C., too, and probably led to the formation of a naval base in Norfolk ten years after the close of the Exposition.

    The Main Auditorium was a must-see, of course.   Sept. 26 – eve – 1907     Luke, Bess

    A choice which surely was Luke’s was the Mines and Metallurgy Building.   Since he worked for Atlanta Steel,  he would want to visit this exhibit and Bessie bought a card for him.

    Sept 26. P.M. – 1907   Luke, Bessie

    A totally unexpected surprise of the trip was the chance meeting of a young man from Canton, New York.   No mention is made of how the meeting took place.  Perhaps they met at a concession stand having lunch?  Regardless, we learn much about him from his post cards.   His name was Wm. J. Heckles and he would maintain a friendship through their post card correspondence for many years with the newlyweds from the South.   His first post card was sent a month after their encounter at the Exposition.

    My dear Mr & Mrs Moore, I have at last reached home tired out but well pleased with my trip…Hope you had a fine trip home and reached there all right.  I only stayed one day at Jamestown and stayed the rest of the time in Philadelphia and New York.  Hoping to hear from you I remain in F.L. & T.      Wm. J. Heckles, Canton, N.Y.    What’s this?  Texting on post cards a hundred years ago?  Every one of his post cards through the years closed with F.L. & T.     LOL.  I have no idea what he meant.

    Another post card was sent while the Moores honeymooned.  Bessie wouldn’t receive it until she got home, but it came from China, Texas.

    I think you should write me, F    Clearly, Florence from our last post was feeling left out.

    The Jamestown leg of the trip lasted two days and Bessie saved this post card to mark her last day there.

    1907 on night of 27. Leaving Jamestown for Washington

    Bessie and Luke continue their journey to Washington, and we’ll meet them there next time.

  • Post Cards From The Heart – Bessie And Florence?


     February 14, 1906

    On a Valentine’s Day in 1906 Florence R.L.  sent this card from Lebanon, Tennessee to Miss Bettie Bogan in Alabama City, Alabama.   A Quiet  Spot, where I should like to be with you for a quiet chat today, Florence wrote beneath the picture on the front.  A friendly message…simple…direct and signed with the initials F.R. L.

    We first met Bettie Bogan in our last post as Mrs. Bessie Moore, wife of Luke.  Florence was a mysterious friend who seemed to have no connection to the Bogan or Moore families but was significant enough in Bettie’s life for her to save the cards she received through the years from F.  The next post card I found from Florence was addressed to Mrs. Bessie Bogan Moore in Alabama City.   It was postmarked from China, Texas which is in Jefferson County.   China is still a small town a hundred years later in the midst of  the Beaumont-Port Arthur metropolitan complex and I bypass it frequently on my trips from our home in Montgomery to visit my favorite aunt who has lived in Beaumont for more than seventy years.

    March 05, 1907

    Will write you soon.   Florence

    Much had happened in the year since Florence mailed Bettie the Valentine’s Card.   Florence left the hills of Tennessee  for the lowlands of southeast Texas where a collection of chinaberry trees that was a water stop for the Texas and New Orleans railroad  in the late 1800s became known as China Grove and later just plain China, Texas.    Why the move?   Bettie had evidently married Luke Moore in the interim and was now known as Bessie.   Bettie to Bessie?   Changing last names was the norm, but changing first names?   A woman ahead of her time?  Or an indication the friendship with Florence had changed because of the marriage?

    May 20, 1907

    A second card to Mrs. L. P. Moore in Atlanta, Georgia in May of 2007 indicated Florence’s frustration  with not hearing from Bessie.   Indeed you are mistaken, you are due me a letter.  I have about decided all my correspondents have forgotten me.  F   Polite, but edgy.

    Unreadable Date

    A beautiful view of the Neches River in Beaumont was another card Florence sent to Bessie at the Atlanta address.   Hello, will write soon.  Hope you are well ere this.  Was sick last week myself.  F

    July 5, 1910

    The last post card saved was a typical Texas Pasture View whether near Beaumont or not but this one claimed to be in the vicinity.   More than four years after the Valentine’s Day card, Florence wrote Bessie in Atlanta one more time.

    I rec’d your card few days past.  Was just wondering what had become of you…The last letter I had from you was answered long ago.   Write to me…Lovingly, F

    I wonder about the friendship between these two women in a time long ago –  but not too far away.   I think I’ll take a side trip to China when I can visit the cemeteries in the area to see if I can find a marker for Florence.   Her post cards from the heart moved me,  made me sense a kindred spirit and I am drawn to her longing for the quiet chat in A Quiet Spot.

    Lovingly, S

  • Post Cards From The Heart


    April 30, 1908  I have FAITH in you, Bessie

    Dear Husband, I certainly expected a letter this a.m.  I went to the office and returned disappointed.  They are not going to have the supper Sat night, will have a play at the Hall for benefit of Albertville sufferers.  We may go if it is not too cold.  I tell you today is terrible.  Must have been a hail storm up above us.  Write me soon.  I am ever your wife,  Bessie

    December 23, 1908

    Dear Husband, Letter rec’d and contents noted.  But Sweetheart, I’ll be there Sat sure rain or shine or sick or well.  Mr. Moore {Luke’s father} told me not to go Friday but I had decided to go Sat anyway.  Wish you were here for the Xmas tree tomorrow night.  I’ll close for this time.  Love to all.  I am as ever your wife, Bessie

    The year is 1908, and it is a time before iPhones, iPads, 4G, 3G or any G…a time before AT&T and Verizon and Sprint cellular phones…actually, it is a time before phones.  Period.   Imagine if you will the days before communication was instant.  No email.   No Facebook.  No computers.  Not a Tweet to be had from a Twitter account.  No television with a weather channel and a forecast for the next seven days.  No fax machines.  The 20th century will see the beginnings and mindboggling development of a tremendous technological revolution, but it wasn’t happening in 1908.

    As the century began, it was all about post cards and letter writing.  Bessie Moore and her daughter Lucia were separated from husband and father Luke Moore.   Bessie and Lucia lived in Alabama City, Alabama and Luke lived and worked in Atlanta, Georgia.  He worked for the Atlanta Steel Co.   Bessie kept a journal of her life through the post cards she carefully preserved in an album which was sold this weekend in March, 2012 at a yard sale.   Think of it.  More than a hundred years later this collection of a woman’s lifetime is unwanted by her descendants or friends.  Ancestry.com would be appalled.  Luckily for me, my partner Teresa spotted it and brought it to our home.   I have fallen in love with this family and feel like an intruder when I read their notes to each other, but somehow I don’t think they mind.

    April 25, 1908

    Dear Husband, Letter recd this am.  I had just returned from meeting {sister} Hattie.  She looks so much better than she did Xmas.  Today is such a lovely day, sorry you are lonesome.  Will try and hurry up and get back as soon as possible.  I may go to Huntsville next week, do not know for sure.  I hope you have a nice time tomorrow.  I thought you would stay at Mrs. Smith’s perhaps this week anyway.  Had a little rain & wind storm here yesterday.  A cyclone at Albertsville. Killed (8) eight and some 40 injured.  Just awful.  Sent relief trains and physicians.  I forgot to tell you the atcil (sp?) plant has never run and liable never to from what I can hear.  With love I’ll close for this time. Will write tomorrow of course.  your wife, Bessie 

    And so I leave the Moore family this evening with you. Alabama is trying to recover in 1908 from a cyclone reminiscent of the tornadoes we’ve experienced in the south this week while  Bessie and Luke struggle with the loneliness of being apart much like the feelings Teresa and I have had during the past year we’ve lived in different places and spaces.

     Luke sends these Easter Greetings to Bessie at an unknown date with only the handwritten words shown below.

    Luke to Bessie