Vintage Connaught School Postcard

While I've been keen to collect vintage postcards of my hometown of Medicine Hat, Alberta, one of the things that I've been most enthusiastic about is finding ones that have been used and tell a bit of a story. This postcard of Connaught School was one of those finds, and was mailed off to Vermont (via Montreal) nearly 90 years ago in 1924. 

Like the other used postcards I've found, I love bringing them back to the Hat after decades of being hundreds or sometimes even thousands of miles away. This postcard was sent from a little girl (who likely attended Connaught School) to her Aunt, where she wrote that she'd be leaving soon to come and visit her.

A few things struck me when I saw this postcard. One was that the little girl was named, Edna. It's a name that's now so dated, I found myself joking / dwelling on the fact that people gave their kids senior citizens names - even though they obviously weren't back then. The other thing was that the postcard showed Connaught right after it was completed, with no landscaping, and no other buildings surrounding it. It really makes the details of the structure seem more prominent than they look today hidden behind so many trees.

The third thing that I realized, and it is a bit sad, but even though this postcard was written by a child she's probably no longer alive. If she was she'd easily be pushing 100. Things like this make the history even more captivating to me when I stop and realize that someone else's entire life went by before this small memento found its way to me. And now, unknown to those who originally shared this, I'm sharing it again and it's become a small piece of my story. There's a poetry to it all, and it makes me curious about how someone in the future might react to finding one of my Around the Hat postcards after I'm gone.