Postcard of Irving Circle Park-1913

      On August 19, 1913, Fern Hester of Everton, Indiana in Fayette County, received a postcard from a friend who was vacationing in Irvington. The friend, only known as P.S.M., sent an image of the Irving Circle Park and marked where they had been staying. Miss Hester was home for the summer from Moores Hill College where she had been studying to be a teacher. Her father, the Reverend Charles Hester, served as a Methodist minister and frequently moved his family around to small Indiana villages like Everton. Newspaper accounts later revealed that Miss Hester contracted typhoid fever and had to leave school to recuperate. She survived and later went on to teach in Wayne County, Indiana as well as in Santa Monica, California. She kept the postcard most likely until her death in 1983. 

     The beautiful image reveals a lovely park that still exists today. The photographer stood at the north end of the circle and aimed the camera to the south and east. He or she captured the original fountain which spouted water high into the air. The park also apparently had a wooden fence. A lush canopy obscures the homes located at 261-63 (a double) and 269 South Audubon Road. Both of those residences were less than ten years old at the time. A large view of this card exists at the Irvington Historical Society. The image likely dates to around 1912. 

The Irving Circle Park, c1912 (postcard courtesy of Kyle Kingen)

Note to Irma Fern Hester (1896-1983), 1913 (postcard courtesy of Kyle Kingen)

     I wish to thank Kyle Kingen for his submission of the postcard. 

Sources:  US Federal Census Records, 1910, 1920, 1940, 1950; Find-a-Grave; Fern Hester's early life: : "Milton," Palladium-Item (Richmond, IN), July 25, 1912; Hester family-Dearborn Register (IN), July 1, 1909, p.1; Moores Hill--Lawrenceburg Press, April 24, 1913, p. 5; Typhoid Fever--"Moores Hill," Lawrenceburg Press, April 9, 1914, p. 3.