Pursuits : Elizabeth Thomsen

Owney was a stray puppy who wandered into the Albany Post Office in 1888 and fell asleep on a pile of mailbags. He followed the mailbags onto a Railway Mail Service train, beginning a life of riding the rails. He traveled around the country as the unofficial mascot of the Railway Mail Service. According to the National Postal Museum’s website, “Railway mail clerks considered the dog a good luck charm. At a time when train wrecks were all too common, no train Owney rode was ever in a wreck. The Railway mail clerks adopted Owney as their unofficial mascot, marking his travels by placing medals and tags on his collar. Each time Owney returned home to Albany, the clerks there saved the tags.”
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In honor of Memorial Day, I put together this little video of Any Bonds Today, a song by Irving Berlin, sung by Barry Wood, with images from the Library of Congress and National Archives. Just a first attempt at using Movie Maker.

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