Joshua Trees & Desert Sands, southeastern California, postcard found in Monticello, Minnesota, March 2011, Colortone © Curt Teich & Co., photo scan © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
The “JOSHUAS” or “PRAYING TREES” are found throughout the desert sections of the Southwest. The coarse fibrous limbs growing in unusual grotesque shapes bear branches of dagger-like leaves.
When we visited the Trumpeter Swans in Monticello a few weeks ago, we ended up going for pie and coffee at Cornerstone Cafe. But not before we checked out the local thrift shop and a new antique store that opened just around the corner. Liz and I were drawn to a table of vintage postcards, much like the postcard from Atlanta that my Uncle Jack sent to Mom in 1952.
Vintage linen postcards were printed from 1930 to 1945 by Curt Teich & Co. of Chicago; they closed their doors in 1978. In my research, I found that the company used a color printing technique called C.T. Art-Colortone. The thick paper was embossed to give the card a linen texture, and the inks were printed on a lithography press using color separation. Linen postcards often portrayed landmarks, landscapes, and roadside attractions, but fell out of fashion in the late 1940’s when polychrome printing was invented.
I thought it would be fun to post a few over the course of the year. My favorites in Monticello were a series of postcards that had been hand addressed and mailed from somewhere across the USA, back to the small town of Dover, Minnesota. In January of 1947, Ione made it clear that she sprang from the swampy Land of 10,000 Lakes, and found it hard to love the dry beauty of the California desert:
Joshua Trees & Desert Sands – Jan 25 1947, southeastern California, postcard found in Monticello, Minnesota, March 2011, Colortone © Curt Teich & Co., photo scan © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Fri. night.
We are just a few miles from Riverside. May call Ralph Keyes. Guess we are through the desert at last. Will finish the last 100 miles tomorrow. We went thru Tuscon this A.M. I called Margaret. She was so surprised to hear me. We covered miles and miles of desert and cactus. Margaret says the desert will soon start to bloom then it is beautiful. We went through El Centro where Eva Ferrier and Don used to live. Don’t blame them for leaving here. I haven’t been travel sick yet so guess I’ll be alright.
Ione.
The desert has a beauty all its own. Though I have not spent time in the California desert, I find peace and solace in the high desert country around Taos, New Mexico. I read that Mormon settlers named the Joshua tree when they traveled west toward their promised land. The shape of the tree’s outstretched branches reminded them of the Biblical story in which the prophet Joshua reaches his hands toward the sky. Joshua Tree National Park gives the tree another important place in American history: Franklin Roosevelt dedicated Joshua Tree National Park in 1936 (only 11 years before this postcard was written) to assure that California’s rapid urban sprawl wouldn’t threaten the unique desert ecosystem in which the trees thrive.
During the Ice Age, Joshua trees grew strong across the American Southwest. According to an NPR article, in the 1930s scientists explored Gypsum Cave outside of Las Vegas where they found parts of skeletons, hides, and hair from the giant ground sloth — an animal that had been extinct for 13,000 years. In layers of the sloth’s dung, there was evidence that Joshua trees were a favorite food of the sloth, including leaves, seeds, and fruits. When the desert turns dry as a bone, the only way animals like the antelope ground squirrel, desert wood rat, and blacktail jack rabbit find moisture is by gnawing through the bark of live trees. The Joshua tree is one of the “great canteens of the desert.” What would we do without ancient trees?
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Ione didn’t have to use much of an address when she sent a postcard to Lottie.
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QM, What fun the old postcards are. We have quite a few in the Archives. Around the turn of the century, many “traveling photographers” took photos, not only of scenery, but of families, and placed them on postcards.
I have two of my father when he was just two or three years old.
When I was in college I had to do a project for a Botany class. My family was planning to spend the Easter week in the desert, so I collected desert flowers and pressed them. One has to get out of the car and walk as the delicate little flowers are hardly visible from the window of a speeding car! I was surprised at how many different ones there were. I know I had over 30 varieties.
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Sinclair, that’s one of the best things about these postcards. Many times they only have the city and the state and it got there perfectly fine.
oliverowl, I didn’t know that about traveling photographers or that they included families. I’d like to see those two of your father on the postcards. What a great family memory.
I know what you mean about the blooming desert. It’s a beautiful thing to see. Once when I was traveling through Arizona, the desert was blooming. It tugs at your heart to see those tiny blooms in all that dryness, like wells springing out of the earth. And the way desert creatures and plants collect water — every single drop matters.
In Minnesota, water and green are all around us, so people aren’t as aware sometimes of how valuable water is to an ecosystem. When I head out West, it’s another story entirely. Many people try to live more consciously there, to conserve water. I think water may one day be the most valuable resource on the planet.
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The Joshua trees are a sight to see. I went to the national park one time when I was in Palm Springs.
Love those old postcards. I even have some in the house someplace, in with the old photos probably.
oliverowl is right about the photographers placing the photos on really heavy card stock because I have some from the early 1920’s of different relatives. That must have been the original version of Flicker, only it was called the U.S. mail.
QM, a great post as always. One that left me thinking about what postcards I have, memories of the Joshua trees and the image of giant sloths lumbering through the desert eating the trees.
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Bob, did you go to Joshua Tree National Park as an adult, or a child? Just curious. It would have been so cool to see the giant sloths during the Ice Age. Not that I would have wanted to run into one. I’d like to visit that park one day. And Yosemite which I have never seen.
I am hopeful I’ll get back to California; I found out a few days ago that Liz has relatives in Huntington Beach. I also have a friend I met through blogging that lives in HB, right on the beach. She’s been well aware of the shifts in the Earth and Ocean since the earthquake and tsunami a few days ago. I feel heartsick about everything that is going on right now. It’s hard to know which way to turn the prayers and healing. I’m sending them to the Collective Unconscious, out to the Akashic Records. It’s a place of Universal substance that transcends all the conflict around religion and concentrates on the mystical knowledge that has been passed down through all of time. One god, if any; I believe we all pray to the same god. And for those who don’t believe, their wisdom is held there as well. I’m choosing unity over conflict. It’s the best I can do.
Cool about the family postcards. I have a few photos of my Aunt Cassie & Uncle Claude that are unusual in that they are briskly walking down Broad Street in Augusta, Georgia, and they kind of look posed. I once asked my mom about them and she said that photographers used to stand on the street corners and ask if people wanted their photos taken. These two photos were ones that Cassie & Claude had taken by one such photographer. They are pretty cool. Next time I see you, maybe you can show me the postcards. Or if they relate back to any of the memoir posts you’ve done on red Ravine, send them to my QM email and I’ll post them.
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After reading your post, I had this strange image of our entire planet being covered with those sturdy Joshua Trees, all praying for a more harmonious phase of existence. There is resilience all around us, despite the destruction, whether natural and human made. Thanks to art and trees and the human heart always searching for the places that hold water (even if only a few drops).
Teresa
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Whenever you come to visit I’ll take you out to Joshua Tree and show you the giant boulders Ansel Adams shot. We can climb all over them! It’s about an hour from my house and a great place to photograph.
I personally like Death Valley…and don’t let the name fool you. It’s a well kept secret. Both places have some very interesting characters living around them ;).
You’d like Anza Borrego as well. Zillions of Herbalists fly in from all over haties in spring to observe plant life (and probably sneak a few cuttings).
You might like little Catalina Island as well…or you could just drive the Egg.
It would be a relief to take someone somewhere besides D-Land or Hollywood 😉
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Teresa, wonderful image of the Joshuas. Harmony and peace all around us. I was just reminded when I read your comment about visiting the Grand Canyon for the first time. I think it was some time in the 1980’s. It was before they put more restrictions on the road and you could still drive yourself through it. There was a plant there in bloom that only blooms once in its lifetime, and it might take 10, 20, or 30 years for it to bloom. I think it was the agave.
Think of the patience it would take to know that you were only going to bloom once in your life. In Montana, I remember beargrass. I think it blooms once every 10 or 12 years. It seems like plants that grow in desert or very dry areas have a lifestyle all their own. And oh, so much patience. I have great respect for the desert.
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H., I’m totally game! I wish we could fly down right now and see the Joshua trees and I’d love to go to Death Valley, too. I’ve never seen it. For me, the more remote and unusual, the better. And it would just plain be fun to come down there and hang out with you. Liz is game, too. I bet we’d never stop laughing.
One of these years, we will get to the West Coast again. It feels like so long since I took a vacation where I just went away for a week or two and relaxed in a place I had never been before. Liz and I are thinking about taking a short vacation to Lake Superior for our anniversary in May. Just to get away. Of course, that’s one of the beautiful watery places in the world, Womb of the Earth. So different than the desert. Beautiful in so many other ways. Maybe you can come to the Midwest sometime!
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No doubt on the laughing QM. I just saw Yosemite on your wish list of “things to see”. I’m definitely up for that one! That’s a place very close to my heart.
When I die, my ashes will be unlawfully snuck in by an unnamed source and scattered at either Mirror Meadow or Mirror Lake (depending on the weather). :O I’m not picky (and will be less so at that point). I am debating whether I’m to be shuttled in a Lucky Charm cereal box or a carved pumpkin. I guess the time of year will decide it.
I’m laughing now because it will be the one, only and last time I ever do anything illegal. (I’m not counting my taxes…not sure where Big Brother is lurking)
😉 H
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H., you always make me smile. I’m up for Yosemite, maybe 2012. I want to do some traveling next year with Liz. We haven’t taken a proper vacation since our road trip to Pennsylvania to meet my family, visit Fallingwater, spend time in Ocean City, Maryland with my mother, sister, and her family. I long for an old-style vacation where one goes somewhere new, sits, and relaxes, walks the mountain paths, takes photographs. Ah, I’m getting nostalgic just thinking about it.
I vote for the Lucky Charms box, but then again, you are the Queen of Halloween! I think you’ve got to do the pumpkin, too. Do both! I hope I get to meet you in person someday.
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I love this post about the Joshua Trees. There is a parkway, named coincidentally enough the Joshua Tree Parkway, and it runs from Wickenburg AZ to Wikiup. Wickenburg is west of Phoenix and hour or so, and I had hoped to get up there to see the trees. Plans changed, and the triop was canceled. But they are still on my bucket list–in Arizona or California, either way they would be great to see.
I did make it to Organ Pipe Cactus Natl Monument a few hours west of Tucson, and I am SO in love with those cacti. I thought the Saguaro were the best, but now I’m wavering–Organ Pipes, when they cover the south side of a mountain, are surely a grand sight.
Has the snow all melted in MN (and WI)? I said I wasn;t coming back to the Midwest until I could see the grass, but my days are numbered. Before I know it, I;ll be heading back to Wisconsin. Hmmmmmm. I DO so love the Southwest…
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Bo, Joshua Tree Parkway…it just has a nice ring to it! I bet you had a great time taking photographs in Tucson. I have not been to Arizona since some time in the late 80’s. I imagine it’s changed a lot. But thank goodness the parks are stable, untouched, at least in every real sense of the word. I am thankful for all the parks in this country. I recently watched a series on the national parks and was struck by how many different kinds of people had to give up their land in order for the park systems to be formed. I had not thought of it that way before. I’m so grateful to those who gave up so much so that we can now have land that is virtually untouched. I know if given the chance, the greedy in this country would develop every single acre of land they could get their hands on. I was reminded when I watched the show, that for every gift we have, someone has sacrificed a lot.
BTW, the snow has not melted yet, at least not all the way! It hit 53 in Minnesota last week. But today it rained like crazy. And tonight it’s sleeting over that rain. I stepped out on the deck about an hour ago and it was so slippery, I have no idea how people are going to do their commutes tomorrow! You are in the right place! No green grass in MN yet. But at least I can begin to see the brown underneath!
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[…] Editor’s Note: In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, professional photographers offered customers the choice of placing photographs on postcards, like the “packages” they sell today. Some were taken in a studio and others at different locations. The photo of Frances was taken in a studio, and the other two at the homes of their clients. Images From The Past was partly inspired by conversation on the postcard piece Joshua Trees & Desert Sands — Jan 25 1947. […]
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[…] Ione wandered through the Joshua Trees & Desert Sands of California, she went spelunking deep in the underground caves of Carlsbad Caverns National Park […]
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