| A Post Card History of Rose Lawn | |
by David Parker, Vice-Chairman Rose Lawn Board of Trustees |  |
| I've recently acquired several old postcards showing Rose Lawn in the first half of the twentieth century. The cards are delightful reminders of a day gone by. One included the postal rates in the place for the stamp: "Domestic 1¢, Foreign 2¢." | |
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The reverse of one card, produced around 1910, says: The Sam Jones Home, Cartersville, GA. The residence erected by the famous evangelist, several years before his death aboard a train while passing through Oklahoma in 1906. He is universally rated the most celebrated American evangelist, whose silver tongue was heard from coast to coast, bringing countless thousands to the feet of Him, whom to know, insures everlasting life. |
| The writers of these little blurbs sometimes got things wrong: Jones bought and remodeled the house rather than "erected" it, and he died in Arkansas while returning home on the train from Oklahoma City. But few could dispute the reputation the writer claims for Jones in the second sentence. |
| The cards show Rose Lawn as it appeared decades ago. One can clearly see the stepping stone at the front of the sidewalk to help people disembarking carriages; the dirt road that was Market Street (now Cherokee Avenue); the rocking chairs on the front porch; the picket fence across the backyard; the roof cresting across the top of the house; the ivy covering the wall and reaching the roof; the flowers that surrounded the house; and the rose trellis on the side of the porch. |  Click to view larger version |
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You've heard much talk lately about a "new age" for Rose Lawn. Let me suggest that these old postcards emphasize what part of that new age should be: a knowledge of and respect for the past, for what Sam Jones and Rose Lawn have meant to Cartersville and Bartow County, and for what they can mean for us as we enter the 21st century. |
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