Personalizing postcards: X marks the spot

Picture postcards were introduced in the Edwardian era as souvenirs and as collectors items. Yet, as often happens with popular products, consumers soon found new uses for these cards. In particular, postcards often showed images of significant local buildings, such as churches, court houses, and schools. In Guelph, many postcards showed images of the Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) and the Macdonald Institute and Hall. These cards could be sent away to show off Guelph's interesting structures or to please collectors of images in those categories.

However, postcards could also be modified to convey extra information relevant to the sender and the addressee. Anyone who collects Guelph postcards will soon notice that more than a few are marked by their senders with an "X" at a place of special significance. For example, consider the following card of the then-new Macdonald Institute and Hall, produced by Charles Nelles:

The sender, Miss Margaret Smith, has put an "X" beside a third-storey room in the middle of the top picture with the notation, "X is my room" underneath. Beside the pictures, in her meticulous handwriting, Margaret adds, "My address is Macdonald Hall, Guelph." On the reverse, she writes:

Dear Uncle:—This is a picture of our home and school. Hope you are all well, poor Carolyn is having sick time in Toronto. Lovingly, Margaret Smith.

The postmark shows that the card was mailed on 30 May 1906.

Of course, the modification is a simple one. Still, it changes what was a generic image meant for mass consumption into a personal representation, specially meaningful to Margaret and her uncle at an important time. Her stay at the Macdonald Institute may well have been Margaret's first prolonged time away from home, in a place where she would learn how to run a household of her own.

Besides their accommodations, young women at the Institute used postcards to indicate where they conducted their studies. The card below is typical:

Three Xs hover determinedly over rooms of the building. On the back, their significance is explained in the accompanying message:

Dear Auntie,—I am feeling fine and we all are. The places which I have marked are the places where we have domestic science. G.B. from G.H.

No doubt, the postcard was selected because it provided a vantage of the rooms G.B. had her classes in. It was sent in 24 Feb 1908.

The young men at the OAC were no less interested in communicating where they lived and worked on campus. One student, whose initials appear to be CTA, sent this card to his friend Keith to keep him up on current events.

In the message, we learn about the writer's academic progress and his attitude towards marriage:

O.A.C. 30/14 // Dear Keith—Mighty glad to get your card. better use multiplication table & make it a letter. I pulled turnips about as big around as a foot ball one afternoon this week. Haven’t got my false head yet. Have been doing lots of studying lately. Hear Bert Milliken is married also Russ. Feel awful sorry for them. CTA (??) I live in room X.

Careful examination of the picture shows an "X" in the third-storey window just to the left of the central mass of the Main Building (since replaced by Johnston Hall). The card is postmarked 30 October 1914.

As did the young women of the Institute, the young men of the OAC used postcards to show where they did their learning. In the card below, young R. Harris shows his Auntie Alice where he takes his dairy classes:

Four windows on the upper floor are marked with Xs while four below are marked with asterisks, as R. explains:

Dairy School 13/2/08 // Dear Aunt. // Your card received & here is one in return. I wish I could get some more pictures of the Dairy Buildings. This is the Main building with Dairy Class room up stairs with X on windows. Creamery & Butter Making Dept. downstairs marked "*" on windows. Hope you are both well. R. Harris

The Dairy Department had several structures on campus of which this "Dairy Building" was the main one (since demolished). It was indeed the only dairy edifice to be shown on commercial postcards of the era. The postcard was postmarked on 14 February 1908.

Other buildings were occasionally marked with Xs by their occupants. For example, N.N. sent a postcard of the new Macdonald Consolidated School to Miss Barbour of St. Marys, Ontario:

Instead of Xs, N.N. has used brackets and "My room" to indicate the first-floor classroom south of the main entrance, facing out onto Dundas Road (now Gordon Street). The Consolidated School was part of an attempt to improve rural education, sponsored by Sir William Macdonald, by concentrating rural students to central locations where they would have access to better facilities and teachers than were usually available in one-room schools. Assuming N.N. is a girl, she would have learned skills in cooking, sewing, nursing, and gardening in addition to the three Rs. Her room also had an excellent view of the lane next to the school where the vans would gather after class to take the children home. The card was postmarked on 18 November 1907.

Postcards of the OAC and Macdonald Institute are the ones most frequently modified in this way by consumers. This is likely because these institutions had a high turnover of occupants, many of whom wanted to inform their friends and relations about where they were off to school. However, postcards of other places were sometimes given similar treatment. For example, here is a postcard of the Opera House block in which Xs flag a couple of places of business.

The message explains:

Aug. 31/12 Hello Nellie:—This is where I am spending the holiday. Received your kind letter and will answer when I get back. The places marked x are my brother-in-law’s stores. Hope you are keeping fruit (??). Will

Interestingly, the Xs point to the Opera House Pharmacy, operated by Frederick Bogardus, the subject of an earlier blog post. The postcard was postmarked on 31 August 1912.

Since Frederick Bogardus was Will's brother-in-law, we can identify him as Wilfred Henry Hill, brother of Ada Maude Hill, who married Bogardus in 1910. Unfortunately, I have little further information about Mr. Hill to share. I hope he enjoyed spending Labour Day in Guelph!

Picture postcards could seem quite impersonal, the mass-produced ones being generic and disposable. However, people found ways to make these items more personal, such as marking Xs to designate places that were in some way special to them. Among Guelph postcards, these were often cards of the OAC and Macdonald Institute, which the young men and women, newly arrived in Guelph, would mark up to communicate some of the excitement to their friends and relations back home. When looking at old postcards, it is worth paying attention to these little signs for the glimpse they offer into the personal lives of those who put them to use.

Frederick Bogardus and his pharmacies

Over the sidewalk at the north end of Wyndham Street hung a curious sign. In the shape of a pestle, it said "Opera House Pharmacy // Bogardus // Chemist". The card was printed by the International Stationary Company in Picton, Ontario. The photo was likely taken during Old Home Week, 1913, which helps to explain the banners on the Wellington Hotel across the road.

Frederick Francis Bogardus was a long-time and successful druggist in Guelph, and his drug stores appear in the corners of several postcards of the Royal City.

On his arrival, the Mercury made a special point of describing him to his new neighbors (8 Oct. 1904). For example, the Mercury article noted that Bogardus was an honor graduate of the Ontario College of Pharmacy and had just worked for eight years in Walker & Abbs’ Queen street pharmacy in his native St. Catherines. He was relocating to Guelph to take over the old Worthington Drug Company at 122–124 Wyndham Street, in the Opera House block, evidently with financial backing from H.W. Calkins of St. Catherines. Astutely, Bogardus named his new venture the Opera House Pharmacy.

We can gain some insight into Bogardus's early business through "Bogardus & Co's Almanac and Cook Book", a booklet published in 1910. The front cover features a large picture of the interior of a pharmacy, showing two men at work. Could they be Bogardus and Co?

(Courtesy of Guelph Civic Museums, 1976.40.42.)

The booklet features a monthly almanac along with ads for the store's offerings. Of course, there are many recipes, for which many ingredients, such as baking powder, can be found in the store. For amusement, many pages feature jokes in the footers. Much of the humor is based on rather crude ethnic and gender stereotypes that would be regarded as rather tasteless today.

Of course, the Opera House Pharmacy offered lots of medicines, of a sort that I discussed in an earlier posting on illness in Guelph in the Edwardian era. Bogardus's Vegetable Liver Granules sound particularly good. Besides that, the store had lots of veterinary medicine, including horse pills and sheep dip. In fact, the book urges the reader to "Use pain balm when you or your horse has a sprain."

Besides getting prepared drugs, customers could apparently get Bogardus & Co to whip up their own inventions:

Our Specialty: We make a specialty of family recipes and prescriptions. If you have a valuable family recipe, let us dispense it. We use nothing but the best drugs and chemicals and dispense strictly with the prescription.

Where today could you get a pharmacist to make up drugs according to your own recipe?

Most intriguing to me are the trusses. The Opera House pharmacy sold all the usual personal items such as brushes, soaps, sponges, and perfumes. However, they were particularly well equipped with trusses. In this case, "truss" refers to a special belt or undergarment used to relieve discomfort from hernias. A hernia occurs when an internal organ like a bowel protrudes through a gap in a person's abdomen, especially the groin. Worn tightly around the waist, a truss applies pressure on the hernia, helping to hold it in and thus relieve some of the pain associated with it.

The Bogdardus & Co. Almanac and Cook Book describes their inventory of trusses in glowing terms:

We carry a complete stock of the different makes of trusses. When in need of a truss come to us. We don't charge you a fabulous price like some of those so-called truss experts; our prices are right. We guarantee a fit, with the proper style for every case.

In the "Commercial, Industrial and Progressive Edition of Guelph, Ontario" booklet issued by the Guelph Chamber of Commerce in 1916, the writeup of the Opera House Pharmacy even features a picture of a truss.

(Courtesy of the Guelph Civic Museums, 1980.115.83, p. 20)

The writing on the pads says, "The Excelsior Improved". Perhaps this points to the Ohio Truss company, of Cincinnati, which was a manufacturer of bandages and elastics and featured the term "Excelsior" in their model line.

Although trusses could help with the pain of hernias, they could still be quite uncomfortable. So, it is no wonder that Bogardus took pains to assure potential customers of his attention to proper fit.

Happily, today hernias are usually addressable through surgery.

Frederick Bogardus married Ada Maude Hill of St. Catherines on 8 June 1910. They went on to have three children: Arthur, Elizabeth, and Doris.

Bogardus must have been good at his job. In 1917, he went into partnership with Walter Barton, a former clerk at the Opera House Pharmacy (Mercury, 6 Nov. 1947). The partnership even opened a second location in the Mahoney Block in St. George's Square, at 74 Wyndham Street. The new location was also astutely named, as "Bogardus and Barton." It appears in the postcard below, located in the far left corner, opposite the old Bank of Montreal building.

The postcard was printed by The Valentine & Sons United Publishing Co., Ltd, of Toronto from a photo dating from around 1925. The corner entrance of Bogardus & and Barton can be made out better in the detail below.

The profuse signage leaves no doubt as to the nature of the business. The picture window on Quebec Street reads, "Bogardus and Barton // Quality Drug Stores" The proprietors' concern with the health of their customers is reinforced by the word "Drugs" in large letters over the door, as well as the word "Cigars" on either side.

Bogardus and Barton seems to have carried on a similar business to the Opera House Pharmacy, although one advertisement does mention photo developing in association with the new location (GCM 2009.32.1200).

Frederick Bogardus had become a settled and significant citizen of the Royal City. He appears in a photograph of the Guelph Chamber of Commerce Annual Picnic held in 1922, along with many other local businessmen (GCM 1981.67.1). Unfortunately, the photo caption does not identify who is who, so it is unclear which face belongs to Bogardus!

Bogardus had also become a centerpiece of the local lawn bowling league. Newspaper accounts of lawn bowling matches often feature "F. Bogardus", who was a member of the Victoria rink. The Toronto Star (10 Aug. 1916), for example, notes F. Bogardus was a member of the Guelph team, also including A. Leitch, T.W. Fox, and G. Chapman (skip), who won the Kuntz Trophy, 19 to 11, over a team from Galt in a tournament played in Waterloo.

His love of lawn bowling seems to have been life-long. In a booklet entitled "Guelph Sports Hall of Fame" (1972), Harold Cole puts Frederick Bogardus in the Hall of Fame, noting that he was "generally regarded as the dean of the [Guelph Lawn Bowling] club, and whose ability at the game lived with him all the years of his life" (GCM 1980.41.4).

Walter Barton died in 1934. Perhaps finding two locations to be too onerous to manage, Bogardus wrapped up both locations and moved Bogardus Drugs across St. George's Square to 55 Wyndham Street, on the south side of the Square. On 1 Jan. 1937, Bogardus moved the store up the street to Wyndham Street 91A, just north of the old Post Office and Customs building, where the Sip Club now stands. The location was evidently rented from the C.N.R., which had a ticket and telegraph office there. When the C.N.R. cleared out in 1947, Bogardus bought the location and expanded into the whole space, renovating the ground floor and doubling the size of his operation (Mercury, 6 Nov. 1947).

Just beforehand, in 1946, Bogardus had taken on a new partner, his son, Arthur. Arthur Bogardus had trained as a druggist at the University of Toronto and graduated in 1940. He promptly volunteered to serve with the Ontario Medical Corps and went overseas with the 10th General Hospital. On his return, he and his father became partners in the new store.

This edition of the Bogardus drug store can be seen in a postcard showing Upper Wyndham Street around 1950. The pharmacy is on the right edge of the picture, beneath the sign that says, "Drugs". The postcard was printed by the Photogeletine Engraving Co., Ltd., of Toronto.

The sign and storefront can be made out more clearly in the detail below. The sign appears to read, "Drugs // Fred'k Bogardus" and is accompanied by a shield for the I.D.A., the International Druggists Alliance, which Bogardus must have belonged to.

About 1953, Bogardus Drug Store welcomed a new partner, Orval Gaul. Gaul had graduated from the University of Toronto's Pharmacy School in 1950 and seems to have begun working for Bogardus shortly thereafter. The business was appropriately renamed the "Bogardus-Gaul Pharmacy" and remained in the same location.

This iteration of the store can be seen in the postcard below, printed around 1965 by the Mutual Wholesale Stationary Limited, London, Ont., just to the left of the Scotia Bank building.

(Courtesy of John Parkyn.)

You can get a better view of the store front in this photograph at the Guelph Civic Museums archive: 1992.28.188.

Frederick Bogardus retired in 1957, having been in business in the Royal City for some 53 years (Mercury; 1 April 1968). He received a 50-year jewel from the Waverly Lodge Masonic Order for his long service to that association. He received a certificate from the Ontario College of Pharmacy, Toronto, 2 June 1958, for being a member for 50 years (GCM 2002.6.2). In his retirement, he continued to enjoy his passion for lawn bowling. He died on 31 March 1968 at the Elim Lodge Nursing Home and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.

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The Pharmacy itself was carried on by Arthur Bogardus and Orval Gaul. It appears to have remained in business until about 2002, when Arthur Bogardus died. In all, the Bogardus Pharmacy ran in Guelph for 98 years, a remarkable span.

Please feel free to leave anything further that you know about Arthur Bogardus and his pharmacy in the comments. It would be especially interesting to hear about the later years of the business and the Bogardus Rose Bowl trophy (GPL F45-0-2-0-0-1876) associated with the Guelph Lawn Bowling Club.

Thanks to Kathleen Wall of the Guelph Civic Museums for help with research for this post!