The Postcard
A postcard bearing no publisher's name that bears an image which is a glossy real photograph. The card features the usual execrable poem that seems to be a mandatory feature of early greetings cards.
The card was posted in Altrincham using a 1d. stamp on Thursday the 26th. July 1923. It was sent to:
Miss Elsie Hallam,
43, Oakfield Street,
Off Stockport Road,
Altrincham,
Cheshire.
Local.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"With best wishes for a
Happy Birthday and the
best of luck.
With love from
Uncle & Auntie."
A Presidential Trip to Canada
So what else happened on the day that Elsie's aunt and uncle posted the card?
Well, on the 26th. July 1923, at 11:00 am, Warren G. Harding became the first U.S. President to visit Canada, disembarking from the U.S.S. Henderson at Vancouver on his way back from Alaska.
After a luncheon and a round of golf at the Shaughnessy Heights Golf Club, President Harding addressed a crowd of 50,000 people at Stanley Park as the guest of British Columbia Premier John Oliver.
At 7:00 pm, the Canadian government hosted a formal dinner in honor of the President and Mrs. Harding at the Hotel Vancouver, after which the presidential party returned to the Henderson.
While the ship was traveling through Puget Sound on the way from Vancouver to Seattle, President Harding dined on crab and became ill in the evening. According to The New York Times summary of the physician report three days later:
"The President's indisposition is attributed
primarily to eating crabs on the transport
Henderson.
That night President Harding had severe
pains in the abdomen, and had a generally
disagreeable time."
The Birth of the Multimeter
Also on that day, Donald Macadie of England was granted British patent 200,977 for his invention of the volt-ohm-milliammeter (or "multimeter") which could measure electrical voltage, resistance and current.
Donald was a Post Office engineer who was so frustrated that he needed to carry a bunch of different instruments when working on telephone lines that he created one tool that could measure amperes, volts, and ohms.
Bernice Rubens
The 26th. July 1923 also marked the birth of the Welsh novelist Bernice Ruth Reuben. Bernice's father was a Lithuanian Jew who, at the age of 16, left mainland Europe in 1900 in the hope of starting a new life in New York City.
However due to being swindled by a ticket tout, he never reached the United States, his passage taking him no further than Cardiff.
He decided to stay in Wales, and there he met and married Dorothy Cohen, whose Polish family had also emigrated to Cardiff. Bernice was subsequently born in the Splott district of Cardiff.
Bernice had two books (Madame Sousatzka, and I Sent a Letter To My Love) adapted to film.
-- Madame Sousatzka
Her 1962 novel, Madame Sousatzka, was made into a film in 1988, with Shabana Azmi and Shirley MacLaine. The book was based on the experiences of her brother Harold Rubens, a child prodigy pianist, and his teacher Madame Maria Levinskaya (died 1960), who inspired the character of Madame Sousatzka.
Harold Rubens was born in Cardiff in 1918, and studied with Levinskaya from the age of seven. The musical Sousatzka was produced in Toronto in 2017. It was intended to be a pre-Broadway tryout for the controversial producer Garth Drabinsky. Victoria Clark portrayed the title role.
-- The Elected Member
Bernice also won the Booker Prize in 1970 for The Elected Member, thereby becoming the first woman to win the prize.
Betty Gilderdale
Also born on that day, in London, was Betty Gilderdale.
Betty Albertina Gilderdale (née Harrington) was an English-born children's author from New Zealand.
She was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2014 for her services to children's literature.
-- Betty Gilderdale - Background
In 1949, Betty received a BA in English from the University of London. The same year, she married Alan Gilderdale, and the couple went on to have four children.
Betty Gilderdale emigrated to New Zealand in 1967. Between 1969 and 1981 Gilderdale taught at the North Shore Teachers’ College, at the Auckland College of Education from 1981 to 1985, and at the University of Auckland in the Department of Continuing Education.
She lived on the North Shore in Auckland.
-- Betty Gilderdale's Writing Career
Betty created the Little Yellow Digger series, with illustrations by her husband Alan Gilderdale. Books in the series include:
The Little Yellow Digger (2009)
The Little Yellow Digger at the Zoo (1999)
The Little Yellow Digger Saves the Whale (2001)
The Little Yellow Digger Goes to School (2005)
The Little Digger and the Bones (2009)
The first book in the series has been translated into Māori, as Te Mīhini Iti Kōwhai by Huia Publishers.
In 1990, Betty compiled the short story collection Under the Rainbow: A Treasury of New Zealand Children's Stories.
Gilderdale is the author of The Seven Lives of Lady Barker: Author of Station Life in New Zealand, a biography of the author Mary Anne Barker.
Betty is also the author of Sea Change: 145 Years of New Zealand Junior Fiction, and Introducing Margaret Mahy.
In 2012, her autobiography, My Life in Two Halves was published.
Gilderdale was a founder and served as president of the Children's Media Watch group. She was also president of and a lifetime member of the Children’s Literature Association of New Zealand.
In the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours, Gilderdale was appointed a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in recognition of her services to children's literature.
Betty died at the age of 97 on the 9th. July 2021, having been predeceased by her husband in 2013.
Joseph Chamberlain
Also born on the 26th. July 1923, in Peoria, Illinois, was the astronomer and educator Joseph Chamberlain.
Chamberlain served in the U.S. Navy as a navigator in the Pacific Fleet during World War II.
Joseph, who had directed Chicago's Adler Planetarium and New York City's Hayden Planetarium, died in 2011 at the age of 88 in Peoria.
