Antique & Vintage Postcards

Bearded men in flat-brimmed hats scatter across a stubble field in the chill Ohio air — an arresting slice of Plain community life captured at an Amish farm sale circa 1963, where a spirited game of "Corner Ball" breaks out among the crowd. Photographer Robert P. Frey caught the scene with remarkable candor: the man in the foreground strides purposefully in his heavy black coat, suspenders visible beneath; behind him dozens of Amish men and boys crouch and mill about near a livestock trailer and outbuildings strung with power lines the community itself would never use. Corner Ball, a traditional Amish bat-and-base game with roots in 16th-century Anabaptist culture, remained a fixture at sales and gatherings well into the late 20th century. Cynthia and Bill mailed this card from Akron, Ohio in August 1963, recounting a scenic drive through the Poconos and a planned return via Virginia's Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway — a snapshot of mid-century American road-tripping alongside an equally vivid snapshot of a world apart.