Days Gone By
Did you ever wonder how they came up with the people on all of those postcards back in the 1960s and ’70s? We did, so we decided to find out with an especially cute postcard of a 10-year-old girl holding a blue claw crab. The back simply states “Crabbing in Sea Isle City, N.J.” So, who is that little girl?
It turns out she is Betty Tocci of Petersburg, N.J. But back around 1960 when the photo was taken, she was known as Betty Creighton. Her family owned Creighton’s Trading Post on Landis Avenue.
The postcard was produced by Longport’s Jack Freeman, a noted publisher of postcards. Freeman’s photos and cards showcased towns from Cape May through Ocean County. “My dad used to buy postcards from him,” Tocci explained recently from her home, just inland from Sea Isle City. “I actually appeared on a couple of different cards.”
Despite the decades since the photo was snapped, Tocci still has a memory of it: “My dad would close the store on Sunday afternoons, and we’d go out on the boat. I spoke with my mother this morning. She reminded me that she took that photo and then the company made tons of postcards.”
Many years have passed since Betty’s photo was taken. And as was often the case, the postcards were produced for years and years – most likely well into Betty’s adulthood.
If You Have A Photo From The Past Send It To Us:
Days Gone By, PO Box 134, Avalon, NJ 08202 or Email info@seaisletimes.com