WORLD WAR I THEATER mystery

This real photo post card is a companion piece to the last image I posted from World War I. Another mystery. I have no idea where it was taken.

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The MYSTERY AFTER THE WAR

I have no information about this photo other than it was given to me by my best friend. It is a real photo post card sent by her grandfather.

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Obviously, it's military personnel taken six months and two days after the armistice with Germany ending World War I. Other than that, it's a mystery.

I hope someone steps forward someday to identify this place, but I'm highly doubtful. Those with real memories of the war are all but gone. This is just a tattered and lost image.

From WJY of The New Found Photography comes the following information:

The armistice of November 11 would end the fighting, but not the war. The actual peace treaty would be negotiated between January and June of 1919. The Treaty of Versailles would be signed on June 28. Until then, American soldiers stayed in their barracks wating to see if they would go home or back to the front. This is, most likely, a shot of Americans hanging out near their barracks.

GIDDYUP ostrich

This vernacular photo was taken in 1919. It's in an old album I purchased at an estate sale. I don't know anything about the woman on the ostrich. Now there's something you don't get to say everyday in conversation. "Why no, I don't know anything about the woman on the ostrich, but thanks for asking." However, if we were back in 1919 and in South Pasadena, California the question wouldn't seem so silly.

The Cawston Ostrich Farm was opened in 1886 by Edward Cawston and closed in the 1920s. It was a major tourist attraction located on 9 acres 3 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. You could ride in carts pulled by an ostrich, buy ostrich feathers and products made using the feathers, and of course actually get on the back of one of the critters. Note that this poor creature has a bag over its head, the ostrich, not the rider. I'm trying to imagine what this scene must have been like once the wrangler stepped back and let it go. How long did the woman stay on? How far was she thrown? And if I didn't see her one foot sticking out on the side I'd swear she and the ostrich were one. Nice legs lady.

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