Friday, August 10, 2012

103rd O.V.I. Vintage Postcards

Since the 103rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry's reunion starts this weekend, here's a few vintage postcards from past reunions to help reinforce the historical aspect of it all.

The early reunions immediately after the Civil War were one and two-day affairs with only the veterans present. Later, the wives and families of the veterans were invited, and the reunions evolved into weeklong camps. Tents were erected to sleep and cook in.

A favorite location for the reunions was Randall's Grove in Lorain (near the present site of the Overlook Apartments). In 1907, four acres of lakefront property was purchased in Sheffield Lake for a permanent reunion site, and the celebrations have been held there since 1908.

Here's a few more looks at what I believe is the current 103rd O.V.I. property as seen on vintage postcards.





Here's wishing the 103rd O.V.I. another great Camp Week!



5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Dan,

Nice article on the OVI along with several nice RPPC by the Leiter Studio of Lorain...

Paula

Dan Brady said...

Hi Paula!
That's interesting that you can tell that they are real photographs by the Leiter Studio--is there a way to tell? Or was he the only one doing that sort of thing locally in the early 1900s? (These particular ones were all on Ebay over the course of the last year.)

Dan

Drew Penfield said...

The numbering and handwriting across the bottom is always a dead giveaway for me. You can tell it was Leiter's handwriting. It's easy to tell Ernst Neibergall's photos for the same reason.

Anonymous said...

Hi Dan & Drew,

Yes,the handwriting and numbering system are usually a dead giveaway even if there is no studio mark on the postcard. Willis A Leiter (Leiter Studio of Lorain)usually captioned his photos and had a distict way of crossing his "t". After your look at a number of his real photo post cards (RPPC) you can easily come to the conclusion that it is a Leiter card. His captions were very artistic and sometimes humerous. Leiter postcards are usually found between 1906 and 1913. This was the golden age of postcards and part of his businees. While selling postcards, he also preserved much of the early history of Lorain as well as other parts of northern Ohio.

Paula

Unknown said...

I am having 53 letters written by Lyman Beecher Hannaford 1841-1888, 103 OVI
https://lymanbhannaford.wordpress.com/2018/09/04/the-journey-begins/