Y.M.C.A. Island Play Grounds, Lynchburg, VA, 1919

About this postcard

The card shows a riverside recreation ground on an island in the James River at Lynchburg, Virginia. A large open pavilion carries "Y.M.C.A. PLAY GROUND" across its roof, with a fenced athletic field beside it, a boathouse with canoes and rowboats at the water's edge, and a steel truss footbridge at right. Wooded hills of the James River valley rise behind the grounds. The Lynchburg Y.M.C.A. kept the island as a summer playground and a bathing and boating spot for city members, part of a wider movement to give city residents outdoor recreation. Hallie's note from late January 1919 remarks on summer-like weather and her mother's improving health, the kind of brief personal news that filled such cards. -- About Louisa (Sturgeon) Smith Ryburn (born 1864) Louisa (Sturgeon) Smith married William A. Ryburn on 26 March 1907 in Washington County, Virginia. She was previously married and had two sons, Ira Smith and William M. Smith.In the 1900 U.S. Census she was living in Saltville, Washington County, Virginia, with her husband. By the 1910 Census she was residing in Glade Spring, Washington County, with her husband William A. Ryburn, her two sons, and her brother Joseph Sturgeon.