Snow blankets a monumental granite torii gate in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, its graceful Japanese silhouette rising against a winter sky streaked with amber and cold blue — an arresting sight in the American Upper Peninsula and a testament to the international goodwill of Governor Chase S. Osborn, who presented this torii to the city after his travels to Japan. Postmarked in Sault Ste. Marie in 1944 — the depths of World War II — the card's Japanese subject matter makes it a quietly striking historical artifact: while Americans fought in the Pacific, this symbol of Japanese culture stood peacefully in a Michigan park. The sender, writing to a recipient named Mrs. Wm Stringer at 601 14th St., Port Huron, Michigan, fills the back with warm, looping cursive, mentioning they had "so much" to tell and had rarely been able to write — a wartime correspondence touching in its ordinariness.