Terry S. McMahon's 1967 QSL from Merritt, Michigan

Terry S. McMahon and his spiffy ham-radio setup are featured in a photograph on the front of this QSL card that was mailed to an address in Pennsylvania back in December 1967.

McMahon, using call sign WA8OUP, was stationed in Merritt¹, a small unincorporated community within sparsely populated Butterfield Township in Missaukee County, Michigan.

In the note on the back, Terry acknowledges a QSO (contact) and adds "Hope you had a Merry Christmas and have a good year."

The card is addressed as follows:

W3CUL
MARY D. BURKE
265 WAVERLY RD
NORTON
PA.

It took me a little bit, but I finally figured out that "Norton" was supposed to be "Morton," which is a borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.²

Part of what confirmed my research is this tidbit from the March 31, 1964, edition of the Delaware County Daily Times.

"A Morton couple, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Burke of 265 Waverly Road, also are relaying messages by ham radio. One of the first replies the couple received was that all military personnel at Kodiac [sic] are safe."

That's a reference to the 9.2-magnitude earthquake that hit Alaska in March 1964. Ham radio was one of the best ways that people in the mainland U.S. were able to contact those in Alaska during that natural disaster, which claimed 139 lives. (For more on that topic, read the August 2012 post "Radio to the rescue — Ham operators establish link with world after earthquake" by Clark Fair on The Redoubt Reporter.)

Footnotes
1. Merritt was, for a couple of years, a childhood home of Burt Reynolds.
2. Morton was named after Sketchley Morton, son of Declaration of Independence signer John Morton.