Post Cards From The Heart – It’s Been Quite A Pleasure Trip To Me

Posted bySheila Morris 2 Comments on Post Cards From The Heart – It’s Been Quite A Pleasure Trip To Me

Bessie loved the sights she’d seen on her honeymoon trip and wrote her longest comments on a post card of Thomas Circle dated Sunday, September 29, 1907.   Was she writing to one of her sisters or someone in Luke’s family or maybe just a note to remind herself of the awesome experience she’d had on her stay or maybe even to her dear friend Florence?   You be the judge.

We are taking in the sights of the city. It has been quite a pleasure trip to me. Seems like our trip to Y.C.F. July 4th., 1904.   Yours, B.B. M.       Sunday, Sep 29, 1907 

Of course, Bessie wanted to visit the Post Office and make sure she had a post card from the Home of All Post Cards!   The building didn’t disappoint her and Luke was entertained by her enthusiasm for a site he considered to be of lesser importance in the overall scheme of D. C.

They both must have enjoyed the fountains on their Sunday walk through the Capitol.   Bessie had two interesting pictures of fountains she saw on this day in September of 1907.

Batholdi Fountain

Sept 29, 1907  We saw this fountain but it was not frozen like this.

The Neptune Fountain at The Congressional Library made an impression on the couple as they began their tour of the Library.    No tour guides today as they decided to wing it on their own and Bessie concluded this library was “The finest in America…” 

Reading Room, Congressional Library

Sunday, Sept 29 – 1907   Luke and Bessie

In the midst of the post cards Bessie kept from her trip, I didn’t find a single one of the hotel where they stayed, but I think it must have been near F. Street N. W. because her final post card from the weekend was of that street.

The scene shifts to Arlington, Virginia tomorrow as the honeymooners head south to Lee’s mansion and then further south to Washington’s Mount Vernon, but for this last day in Washington we’ll watch them holding hands as they leisurely stroll down F. Street in the midst of the trolleys and tourists.   Their D. C. days have passed quickly, but Bessie has the post cards that will keep her “pleasure trip” in safekeeping.

Published by Sheila Morris

Sheila Morris is a personal historian, essayist with humorist tendencies, lesbian activist, truth seeker and speaker in the tradition of other female Texas storytellers including her paternal grandmother. In December, 2017, the University of South Carolina Press published her collection of first-person accounts of a few of the people primarily responsible for the development of LGBTQ+ organizations in South Carolina. Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home will resonate with everyone interested in LGBTQ+ history in the South during the tumultuous times from the AIDS pandemic to marriage equality. She has published five nonfiction books including two memoirs, an essay compilation and two collections of her favorite blogs from I'll Call It Like I See It. Her first book, Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing received a Golden Crown Literary Society Award. Her writings have been included in various anthologies including Out Loud: the best of Rainbow Radio, Saints and Sinners New Fiction from the 2017 Festival, Mothers and Other Creatures; Cowboys, Cops, Killers, and Ghosts (Texas Folklore Society LXIX). She is a displaced Texan living in South Carolina with her wife Teresa Williams and their dogs Spike, Charly and Carl. She is also Naynay to her two granddaughters Ella and Molly James who light up her life for real. Born in rural Grimes County, Texas in 1946 her Texas roots still run wide and deep.

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