A sun-drenched afternoon at Benton Park's ornamental lily pond shimmers in hand-tinted color — water hyacinths float in loose clusters across the glassy surface while a lone figure in a white shirt leans against the wooden rail, taking in the scene with the unhurried ease of a January day in 1927 St. Louis. The neoclassical pavilion gleams white through the trees at right, and the broad lawn sweeps back toward Jefferson Avenue in this south-side neighborhood gem that had been a public escape since the Civil War era. On the back, a note penned in looping cursive carries warm words from a sender identified only by the return address area — mailed from St. Louis to a "Mrs." in Port Huron, Michigan, the card traveled with two one-cent Franklin stamps affixed side by side, their green ink still vivid nearly a century later.