Two more Melvin Reed QSLs: Commerce and Münster

Here are two more ham radio QSL cards sent to Melvin "Midge" C. Reed (W3AIT) of Frackville, Pennsylvania, 20 years apart. (To dive backward into Reed's many QSLs on Papergreat, see last year's November and August posts.)

First up is this seemingly homemade QSL, sent from "Lou" Seyler (KN5VVW) of Commerce, Texas, in 1960. Commerce is a small, rural college town in northeastern Texas and the birthplace of World War II Flying Tigers leader Claire Lee Chennault.

If I found the correct Seyler, he served as a physician in World War II. On Find a Grave, there is a Dr. Louis Walter Seyler (1908-1988) who died and is buried in Commerce. In a blog post earlier this year, historian Carol C. Taylor writes:

"The longest resident practice in Commerce was by Dr. Louis W. Seyler, who opened his hospital at 1606 Bonham Street in 1948 and, for over 40 years 'raised almost every kid in the post-war generation.' Whether you got a shot, had a cut finger sutured, a nasty cough, bad cold, etc., his fee was $5.00.

"Dr. Seyler spent many hours reading medical journals. He would often call a patient he had seen weeks before. 'I found a new medication. Go to “Abie” Cranford’s (pharmacy) and pick it up.' Doctoring was an art, a science and an obligation."

The second QSL was mailed to Midge two decades later, in 1980. It's from Ernst Knoll (DF1QU) in Münster, Germany. A version of the image on the front of Knoll's QSL is now available from stock photo vendors such as Alamy, which describes it as "Panorama of Münster, Pieter Nolpe, Hendrick Focken, Anonymou. Reimagined by Gibon."

The most I've ever learned about Münster comes from the 2013 episode of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast titled "Prophets of Doom." The 4-plus-hour podcast is described this way: "Murderous millennial preachers and prophets take over the German city of Munster after Martin Luther unleashes a Pandora's Box of religious anarchy with the Protestant Reformation."

Not the lightest podcast topic, but very compelling, especially if you're a history buff and have a lot of driving to do, which I did at the time I listened to it.