Past Post: Motor Ferry Kalakala 1944
June 26th, 2007 @ 1:08 am by Cliffe | Sorted Past Post
I promised some words on the Kalakala way back when, so let’s jump to it. This postcard has traveled from November 1944 all the way to your computer screen. Looks like a classic 1940’s hand tinting on the photograph, although a little more painterly than usual. The Mighty Kalakala, complete with a name sure to vex even the most seasoned Pac Northwesterners, motored around the sound from 1935 until retirement in 1967. An art deco beauty, don’t you think? Kalakala.org has a few images from the interior here and here. In the late 60’s and into the 70’s Kalakala served as a crab-processing vessel, subsequently fell into disrepair, and after changing hands many times now sits in port in Tacoma. It’s a sad retirement for a Seattle classic, but I do hope she’ll return one day fully restored. The postcard reads:
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Dear Mother,
Just a word to let you know we had our little journey. We rode on the streamlined ferry this time. How does it look? I’ll write later. I am pressed for time now. Have to catch the bus for school. Incidentally, my express package arrived yesterday. I haven’t gotten it yet. No need to now.
Irene
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| Front: 731 Motor Ferry “Kalakala” — World’s First Streamlined Vessel. In Service Between Seattle and Bremerton, Wash. On Puget Sound. |
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| Back: Motor Ferry Kalakala. Postcard sent November 21, 1944 to Hope, North Dakota. |
October 1st, 2007 @ 7:24 pm
That ship’s interior was a masterpiece.
On another note, how do you transcribe bad handwriting on the back of postcards without tearing your hair out?
October 2nd, 2007 @ 12:23 am
Well, in one postcard I mistook “Archie” for “Gochie.” Sometimes it just doesn’t work out.
Cliffe
October 6th, 2007 @ 8:31 am
LOL! I have one postcard I need to scan and get on my site of Michael Reese Hospital sometime in the early 1900s. I can just barely make out the back but an ex-coworker of mine transcribed it to say that whomever wrote the postcard had a husband in the hospital and she was sending it out to a friend to tell that person her husband had passed away. I also have another one that my husband laughed at because it was riddled with spelling errors.