another photo tour of the past

Because I have a LOT of photos. Cousin E’s mom, Aunt M, added some very helpful information on my last two old photo posts. (She added it via Cousin E, not with notes of her own, as she’s currently not an OD diarist, but would certainly have some interesting entries.) I love the small things that she recalled from fifty or sixty years ago – or more, actually – like how my father, as a very small child with a very big hat, was unhappy about having his picture taken with the cows. Even though she couldn’t remember the cows names. It makes me want to sit every member of my family down and say, "Okay, now tell me everything you know about these pictures!!" EVERYTHING!!! The smallest details! I love it that your sister is wearing a coat meant for you but you never grew into it – what else do you remember???"

Cousin E’s mom and my dad are the last ones left. I think my project for the next time I’m home better be getting Daddy to tell me everything he remembers about that old album they have. That someone glued the pictures into, so if there ever were any notes on the back, they’re long gone.

Well, anyway. It’s late, of course, and if I’m going to post old nostalgic photos, I better get to posting.

And perhaps I should be a little more methodical about it. If I’m doing this, I should probably do it right and not in my usual slapdash manner.

So. There were seven children originally in my father’s family. The next to oldest, Elizabeth, died when she was around 18 months old, of hairballs. Of all things.

This, obviously, isn’t one of the pictures in the Box O’Pictures I’ve been scanning. Although it IS in the old album my father has – either this one or a very similar one. And I’m sure there are other pictures of Elizabeth in that album too. This is  a picture of a picture that was hanging in my uncle’s computer room – Cousin E’s father’s computer room. Where I slept when we visited a few years ago. Prior to that it hung in my grandparents’ house, over the bed where various cousins and I would sleep as kids. We were fascinated by poor little Elizabeth who died so young.

This may be Elizabeth. It’s my grandfather hoisting one of his children. I don’t know who that is in the back, but it doesn’t look like my grandmother. It may be a Georgia Relative. We had vast numbers of Georgia Relatives. Both my grandparents were from Georgia.

HL was the oldest, then Elizabeth, then Juanita (who was known as Sis – I’m not sure where they got Juanita, as it seems very exotic for the rural NC mountains in the 20s), then Merle, then my father, then Mabel, and Jean was the youngest. This is the always-dashing HL, with Mabel on the left, and Merle – Cousin E’s mom – on the right. You can always tell Cousin E’s mom by the glasses. I don’t think anyone else in the family had poor vision. Not until Cousin E, her sisters, and me, at least. Right offhand I can’t even think of any other of our many cousins who wore glasses. We were the lucky all-but-blind ones. My brother? Perfect vision. Perhaps it’s a curse of girls who loved to read.

I’ve just realized the oddest thing. I don’t seem to have many pictures of Sis. Or at least my favorite pictures don’t generally include her. I’ve got tons of the other three sisters in various groupings, but not of her. She was… not the black sheep, but she wasn’t my father’s favorite sister so I think that kind of colored my views. Especially in later years when I got to hear all his stories about her, mostly about how she seemed to believe she was better than the rest of them. And she apparently was a pathological liar as well. My father has kind of dwelled on that in the past few years. I always liked her when I was a kid – she and her husband were both very nice to me, and I had no idea of all the turmoil that had gone on between the adults. Probably just as well.

She was in the earlier family picture, and here’s the whole family again –

L-R – my grandfather (who, seriously, looks exactly the same in these photos from the 40s as he did 30 years later when I remember him), Daddy, Mabel, my grandmother, Jean, HL, Merle, and Sis on the end. This looks like the same day the picture I posted earlier was taken, but includes my grandparents, who were just shadows in the snow in the other picture. According to Aunt Merle’s notes via Cousin E, it was a Sunday and HL was probably in college. He went to High Point for two years before WW 2. I believe he went on a football scholarship. (That memory was via my father.) That coat Sis was wearing was the coat meant for Merle, which Merle never grew into. Sis tended to be the heavier one in the family.

Mabel, Merle and Jean – I wonder if they were on their way to school. Or perhaps church. Merle is holding a book, but I think Merle was often holding a book. She looks very stern – she probably wishes she was somewhere else, reading her book in peace. I’ve heard stories about how one of her jobs was to churn butter, and she’d churn butter while reading. Her churning would get slower and slower, until her mother would yell out the window to her to pay attention to what she was doing. I used to try and read while breaking beans and get reprimanded for not paying attention to my bean-breaking, so I always appreciated her churning woes.

And a little later, all three of them again clowning around. According to the handy note on the back – written, I think, by Mabel – it looks like her scribbly handwriting – they were 21, 25 and 18.

One of my favorites of Jean. Jean was The Pretty One. Merle was the smart one, Mabel was the tomboy – I guess Sis was the one who wanted to get away.

That piano was still in the livingroom until a few years ago. Her son has it now. I don’t see him much – only when someone dies, really – but at Mabel’s funeral he said he still has it, and has gotten it refurbished.

Another favorite of Jean – and Dan, the family horse. Dan was a legend of my childhood. I think Dan was more Daddy’s horse than anyone else’s. At least Daddy always told me stories about Dan and how he’d ride Dan everywhere he went. Dan lived to be a very old horse – I believe Daddy was married when Dan died. Dan was my ammunition when I’d beg for a horse as a child. "Well, YOU had a horse! You had DAN!" Apparently it worked – Daddy got us a horse when I was nine or ten. He liked horses.

Amusingly, Jean named one of her sons Dan. I’d like to think it was afther Dan the Horse.

And another very favorite – Daddy and Aunt Merle. It’s such a great picture of both of them. I think this was right after WW2 ended, but I’m not completely sure. Daddy joined the Navy at the unbelievable age of 15, and had just turned 17 when the war ended, so it’s hard to judge by the age he looks here.

Daddy’s fifth grade school picture. He dropped out in eighth grade. He thought he was dumb – and still does, sadly – because he had such a hard time in school. I’m pretty sure he’s dyslexic, and think my brother who hated to read but is a whiz at math probably is too. My brother really looks like him in this picture, and so does my oldest niece.

And his Navy picture. Which wasn’t all that long after his fifth grade picture, really.

And this is probably enough for this installment. Cousin E, if you can add any helpful notes or correct any sadly mistaken information, have at it!