Message in Bottle Found 97 Years Later

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception





– On June 30, 1915, Selina Pramstaller and Tillie Esper wrote a brief message during a trip to a Michigan amusement park on Harsens Island, sealed it in a bottle, and dropped it in the St. Clair River.

Last June, almost 97 years later, diver Dave Leander found it at the bottom of the river and it  recently came to the attention of the Harsens Island St. Clair Flats Historical Society. "Having a good time at Tashmoo [Park]," the message reads and the society so happens to be planning Tashmoo Days, celebrating the park, which closed in 1951.

The bottle held cherries or olives before being used as an envelope and was not buoyant enough to float, so it, "pretty much sunk where they threw it," another diver and president of the Metropolitan Detroit Antique Bottle Club explains to the Detroit Free Press. The president of the historical society is trying to find descendants of Pramstaller and Esper, who wrote the message on the back of a White Star Line deposit ticket and also wrote their addresses in Detroit. If found, he hopes they will attend Tashmoo Days, where the bottle will be exhibited.