The Postcard
A postcard that was published by Wildt & Kray of London NW. The card was printed in Saxony.
The card was posted in Walthamstow using a ½d. stamp on Wednesday the 11th. September 1912. It was sent to:
Miss N. Landown,
50, Lower Clapton Road,
London NE.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"11 - 9 - 12.
Dear Nellie,
Many thanks for sending
card in French Old Dear.
Next time you write we
will have English.
How are you getting on,
and when are you coming
to see us?
Poor lonely lass I guess
you are. I expect if you tell
the truth you are like this
card in ----.
We shall be very pleased
to see you Dear when you
like to come.
Hoping you are well.
With love from Maud and
kind regards from C."
Riccardo Moizo
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted to Nellie?
Well, on the 11th. September 1912, Italian Army Captain Riccardo Moizo became the first pilot to become a prisoner of war.
He was taken prisoner after his Nieuport airplane was forced to land at Azizia in Libya during the Italo-Turkish War.
Suicide by Gunshot
Also on that day, Etta Duryea Johnson, white wife of African-American boxing champion Jack Johnson, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. She was 31 years of age when she died.
Johnson had met Etta Terry Duryea, a Brooklyn socialite and former wife of Clarence Duryea, at a car race in 1909. In 1910, Johnson hired a private investigator to follow Duryea after suspecting she was having an affair with his chauffeur.
On Christmas Day, Johnson confronted Duryea, and beat her to the point of hospitalization. They reconciled, and were married on the 18th. January 1911.
Prone to depression, Etta's condition worsened due to Johnson's abuse and infidelity, in addition to the hostile reaction to their interracial relationship.
Duryea attempted suicide twice before she died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on the 11th. September 1912.
On the 10th. June 1946, Jack Johnson and a friend visited a segregated diner; when the diner refused to serve him, Johnson drove away angrily with his friend in the passenger seat.
The car collided with a telegraph pole on U.S. Highway 1 near Franklinton, North Carolina. While his friend survived the crash, Johnson suffered fatal injuries and died later that day at St. Agnes Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina, which was the nearest black hospital. He was 68 years old.
Johnson was buried at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago next to Etta Duryea Johnson. His grave was initially unmarked, but was later marked with a large tombstone which says only "Johnson".
An additional marker was added after filmmaker Ken Burns released a film about Johnson's life in 2005. Johnson's new, smaller gravestone reads:
"Jack/John A. Johnson. 1878–1946.
First black heavyweight champion
of the world."
Johnson's signature is on the back of the stone.
'Within The Law'
Also on the 11th. September 1912, the crime play Within the Law, written by Bayard Veiller, premiered at Empire Theatre on Broadway, NYC.
The production was a hit, and ran for 541 performances. It was adapted to film five times.
Robin Jenkins
The day also marked the birth, in Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, of Robin Jenkins.
John Robin Jenkins OBE was a Scottish writer of 30 published novels, the most celebrated being The Cone Gatherers. He also published two collections of short stories.
John Robin Jenkins was born to Annie (née Robin) and James Jenkins, spirit salesman. In 1919, his father died after serving in the trenches during the Great War, and his mother worked in domestic service in order to support her children.
He won a bursary to attend the Hamilton Academy, then a fee-paying school. The theme of escaping circumstances through education at such a school was to form the basis of Jenkins's later novel Happy for the Child (1953).
Winning a scholarship, Robin subsequently studied literature at the University of Glasgow, graduating in 1936.
During the World War II he registered as a conscientious objector and was sent to work in forestry in Argyll (forestry work would re-appear in The Cone Gatherers).
Upon release of his first novel, So Gaily Sings the Lark (also derived from his conscientious objector experience) in 1950, he adopted the pen name 'Robin Jenkins'.
In the early years of his writing career, Jenkins worked as an English and history teacher. In the 1950's, he taught at Riverside Senior Secondary in Glasgow's East End, and later moved with his family to Dunoon where he taught at Dunoon Grammar School.
He spent four years at the Gaya School in Sabah, Borneo, living there with his wife May and their children. Before that, he had held British Council teaching posts in both Kabul and Barcelona.
His best-known novel, The Cone Gatherers, is often studied in Scottish schools. While The Cone Gatherers has been criticised as being devoid of any real sense of place, other novels such as The Thistle and the Grail, his 1954 football story, paint vivid pictures of more accessible settings.
Robin's writing typically touches on many themes, including morality, the struggle between good and evil, war, class and social justice. Just Duffy is another of his novels which focuses on such themes, in a style which has been compared to that of the earlier Scottish writer, James Hogg.
Jenkins was awarded the OBE in 1999, and in 2003 received the Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun prize from the Saltire Society for his lifetime achievement.
His portrait, by Jennifer McRae, is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland. The Robin Jenkins Literary Award has been established in his name.
Robin Jenkins died on the 24th. February 2005 aged 92; his novel The Pearl-fishers was published posthumously in 2007.
