Better Than Ontario

A recent purchase: a postcard postmarked 1916.


(Click on images to enlarge)

I think I've posted this view before somewhere. The message on the back is more interesting.



Janette (or Jeanette) Kellen was about 13 years old when she wrote this postcard. I believe her parents were J. Cornelius and Katherine Kellen, and they lived in the vicinity of where Tenth Street and Grand Boulevard curve together. Per the 1920 Census, Cornelius operated his own greenhouse. He had done the same in Chicago ten years earlier, per the 1910 Census. From what Janette says here, I get the impression that between 1910 and 1916 the family had tried living in Ontario, Indiana, and did not like it — or, at least, Mrs. Kellen didn't.

I suppose Cornelius was the "J.C. Kellen" who signed the petition for lights on the Ainsworth road, and also the owner of "Kellen's pond," which I remember reading about in one of those Hobart Historical Society books but can't recall which one, or where.