The 70s

I just realized it's been ages since I've posted a vintage photo. It's been quite a long time since I've even done any scanning, but I do still have a good number of great photos in the queue. The quality of this one is a bit dodgy, but it's too interesting not to share.

This takes us back to 1970. In it are, from left to right, my sister, my baby brother, my cousin, and me. I honestly don't remember ever watching TV while holding a rifle, but those were strange times. Nixon was president.

In the background you can see a set of encyclopedias, which were a major source of entertainment for me back in those google-less days. Over on the left side of the image, you can also see the radiator, which is the most awesome kind of heat. I'm pretty sure this photo was taken right around Thanksgiving, putting it in late November, which in western New York means that there was probably snow on the ground outside. And yet I've got no sleeves or shoes on. That is the power of the radiator. There's no draft -- just heat (if this seems like a strange thing to comment on, consider that I now live in the South, where there's nothing but forced air heat -- brrrr!). Also, dig my sister's head gear. Solid.

And baby makes five!

It's been a while since I've shared a vintage photo, and before we get too far from the holiday season, I want to offer this attempt at a xmas card photo, from 1967, the year that our family became complete with the arrival of my baby brother.

What an awesome crew. And lookit the cute smiles on the younger ones. Awwww.   ;-)   Plus, note how my sister is being all attentive to the baby, while I'm fixated on some unnamed shiny object.

Mom

Kindred Spirits

This photo of my mother and my cousin dates back to 1966. These women are both family catalysts -- always at the center of things, and frequently the instigators of the events that surround them. A beautiful photo of both.

Big Bro's B'day

Happy birthday today to the best big brother I can imagine. Here he is with our mother and someone's dog (definitely not ours -- we begged to have one, and eventually did get Mom to compromise with a cat), in 1965. He hasn't really changed at all since this shot was snapped, except for getting taller. I think he maybe even has the same hairdo on most days.  ;)

Blues and lollipops

I'm not sure what the occasion was here. The year was 1966, and I think our clothes are too casual and the weather is too warm for it to have been Easter (which fell on April 10th that year -- surely a chilly day in western New York back in the days well before global warming). Perhaps it's just a random summer day (Sunday?) when we were all dressed to match (maybe just for the heck of it?).

Regardless, there is so much going on in this photo! The outfits... my mother's hat! (Oh, I do lament the loss of the hat in fashion, for both men and women!) And the fact that only the boys have lollipops, and the biggest of those is in the hands of the smallest in our group. All the female eyes seem to be intently focused on that object (with increasing degrees of intensity as we grow smaller!). One wonders if some sort of fight broke out just after the shutter snapped closed a moment later...   ;)

So many questions...

Downtown Batavia, NY, 1966

These are the buildings of the once great Main Street in Batavia, NY. (Alas, these buildings were soon after sacrificed before the gods of urban renewal, and in their place those supposedly divine beings constructed a deeply depressing and mediocre mall of failure -- a building so uninspiring that multiple google searches were unable to tease out a decent photo of what was erected, which is the architectural equivalent of instant oatmeal.)

But these pictures of a 1966 parade capture the buildings that once stood on the north side of Batavia's Main Street. Endicott Johnson (above) was a shoe store; Francis & Mead was a jeweler. They were at 94 and 96 Main Street, respectively. 

And further on up the road, at numbers 108 through 128 Main, were Rudolph's Jewelers, Marchese Bros Mkt, the Genesee County Savings & Loan Association, the Bell Hat Shop,  the Dagwood Restaurant, C.E. Knox Shoes, Alberty Drugs, Brenner's Jewelers, the First Baptist Church, and the YMCA.

A moment in time

Summer, 1964. A classic VW Beetle. A Speedway Pace Car. And from left, my aunt, big brother, cousin, uncle, mom & me. What a wonderful point in the continuum.

The Big Sister

A few days ago, I posted some photos of me with my big brother. Today is the birthday of Brother #2 (there are, for the record, three of them), so I'm going to quickly shift from being the little sister to being the big sister. Voilà! Here we are in the spring/summer of '65, when he was about a year old. Isn't he a cutie? Happy birthday, Little Bro.

A girl, a boy, a hoe and a shovel

Another couple of selections from the vintage photo collection. This is my brother and I, apparently out to get some serious gardening done in the late spring/early summer of 1963.

Two!

Now here's a gorgeous photo from August, 1962. It's my big brother, on or around his birthday (I believe he was actually saying "two" as the photo was being snapped) with my mother, on the back stoop of my grandparents' home in western New York. For as long as my grandmother was alive, whenever someone had a birthday, she made a lamb cake, complete with raisins for the face and shredded coconut for both the lambswool and for the grass (dyed green, of course!), sprinkled all over the plate.

It's a beautiful image of both of them -- the perfect little boy, and my mother looking so eager to take on whatever life tosses her way. At this point in time, she was 29 years old and had three kids, aged three and a half, two, and five months. She never did lose that energy, and my brother went on to become the father of five, a lawyer, a judge, and one hell of a scrabble player.

Back to the Wayback Machine

Happy Father's Day! I'm back! After the trip to China, there was also a quick trip to Florida for my aunt & uncle's 50th anniversary celebration.* Pics of those adventures are waiting in the queue.

And since getting home from the most recent trip, I've returned to scanning the collection of slides I found in my mother's closet, which date back to the 60s and 70s. So, I'll also be adding images to the vintage photo collection, starting with a couple of selections below.

The last couple of nights, I've been working my way through boxes from 1962 and 1963, and I picked out a couple of interesting photos from that set with a nod to today's holiday.

This first one is a little fuzzy, but I like the colors, light and composition. It's my big brother & sister, my father, and a polar bear, some time during the fall of 1962, at what I think might be the Buffalo Zoo.

And here we are, Christmas 1962 (my first one!), in front of the tree. It looks like this shot might have been taken shortly after we'd been opening gifts. That's my sister, my brother, me and my father.

* While there, we also took a day for Emmie's first visit to a Disney park ever! We did Epcot and the Magic Kingdom and had a great time. If you have children, I highly recommend waiting to take them to Disney until the kids are old enough to drink. Everything goes easier -- tolerating the heat and the crowds and the standing in line -- if you know you can all stop for an ice cold beer along the way.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

My sister is a babe. ;)

I've got a whole big bunch of awesome vintage photos to share. There's a backlog for two reasons (beyond the fact that I did a big clump of scanning lately): first, my sister was an adorable baby; and second, my parents were really good photographers. So here's a set of photos of my big sister (plus, the last one can count as my big brother's debut).  ♥

I picked all of these because they are beautiful photos, whether or not you know the people in them. In this first one, you can barely make out my sister, standing on a path under a canopy of trees (the setting, I think, is Louisiana, though I'm not sure what was the occasion for their visit).

Even though she is not perched upon a wheelbarrow, this photo still makes me think of William Carlos Williams. I love my sister's chubby, dirty feet (and the elbow dimple!). I believe this picture and the one following were probably snapped at my grandparents' house in western Tennessee.

The lighting is beautiful here, and the little hair sprig is precious.

This was definitely set behind the home of my other grandparents, in western New York. My sister and our cousin, who was three months older, in a gorgeous wagon.

My sister and my mother are the only ones in the family with blue eyes. Here, my sister owns them.

One of the things I love about the 50s is that people still dressed up. Here's my father in a suit, even though he was just enjoying a day at Letchworth State Park.

Another shot of my sister and trees, this time at Letchworth.

Another classic from the era -- a time when you might actually see a horse in a residential area. The guy in the middle is our cousin and the horse was his. He was taking my sister and a neighbor kid for a ride.

Another horse, only this one lived in a barn behind my parent's house. I love how my sister is oblivious to the beasts behind her, and they are unconcerned with her. That snowsuit she's wearing is iconic. Every kid in my family wore it, and then it was passed along to Emmie and on to some of her cousins!

Oh, and again with the beautiful lighting. Up on tippy-toes, to pat her new little brother on the back. More to come...  ;)

Autumn Greens

Spring 1959

Here are a few more images from my most recent set.

This first one fascinates me in a number of ways. First off, it's just a really cool photo, a classic portrait of the era -- the suits, the ties, the hats, the watch, the store... they're all so hip! The setting amazes me, because the father I know not only would never shop, he also would never wait while someone else shops. I can safely wager that this is the last time he was ever at a Neiman-Marcus store! And though this photo was taken in Dallas in April, 1959 and I know there is no way my father's parents were anywhere in the vicinity (they were most certainly back up in western NY), I still think that guy over on the right could easily be my grandfather. It's spooky! (Oh, and props to my adorable sister for sleeping through the hustle and bustle of the big city!)

This next one was snapped in June, 1959, at the Newark, N.Y. Rose Festival. I was noticing how young my mother looked and then it hit me (and I did the math, just to check): at this point in time, she was almost exactly just one year older than Emmie is right now. Yikes.

Gorgeous photo of both girls. Such an intense look from my mother, but my sister seems a little wistful (something perhaps had caught her attention?).

These last two are a cheat because I couldn't decide which one I liked better, so I finally opted to share them both. Great pics of the cute baby and the slick car! (And there's a cool wagon whizzing by in the background of the first.)

For the record, the car was my parents' brand new '59 Ford. I think it's in front of my grandparents' house, in either late June or very early July... (gotta love my sister's updo!)  ;-)

Early 1959

The first roll or three of film from 1959 somehow ended up with a reddish haze over it/them. All the photos have the same tint, and I've done my best to process that out of them, but some of the dominating color remains. Despite their defects, these first two photos are some of my favorites of the year, and in some ways, they are like bookends.

First is my mother, just as she was becoming a mother for the first time. I think this was on Day #2 or #3 of being a mom, still in the hospital (because it was the late 50s); she used the self-timer to take a self-portrait. Even already, she seemed so sure of herself.

... and then is my sister. The first of us five kids. And in this shot, at just 3 weeks old, she seems to mirror my mother. Both in bed, but clearly not tired, both looking directly at the camera with their blue eyes.

And finally, about 3 months after my sister's grand entrance into the world, a gorgeous shot, set at Amon Carter Field, which eventually became the Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport. The subjects are, from right, my mother, my sister, my mother's brother, who was in the process of being deployed to Hawaii, and their cousin and his wife. 

The marriage...

My parents ended up having two weddings. Things were complicated back in the 50s. My father's parents were Catholic via the Episcopalians, and my mother's family was incredibly Presbyterian (her father was a minister). Given no easy compromise, they opted for two ceremonies. On April 16, 1958, they got married at the Church of the Lady of the Rosary (now a landmark!) in New York City, with my father's parents in attendance. Then they spent a few days driving south and on April 19, 1958, they got married again at the First Presbyterian Church in Lawrenceburg, TN, with my grandfather officiating. Their honeymoon consisted of a meandering roadtrip back north again.

Here they are in New York City, fresh off the first ceremony. Isn't my father quite the sly hipster? And what awesome hats, on both of them!! (I wish people were still serious about hats, but that's an issue for another day...)

And here they are several days later, on their honeymoon, after being married in Tennessee (my mother gave my father a camera self-timer as a wedding gift -- how cute is that?).

I'm going to miss these kids.

I've been slow to post a vintage photo update lately, so in the most recent scanning I've been doing, they're already parents. About nine and half months after these photos were taken, my sister was born and a wonderful chaos began. I wouldn't come along for a few more years, and eventually our little nuclear family would top out at seven (five kids and those two romantics up there). But there has been something thrilling about working through these particular slide carousels while watching their courtship blossom into a marriage. And while I'm looking forward to seeing the family grow, I'm going to miss the energy and romance of their early years together.

Also, just a quick observation: at the time this (second) photo was taken, my mother had only been married a day or two. But am I the only one to notice that she's already kicked off her shoes? That makes me so happy -- but then again, I've never been one to keep my shoes on, either.  ;-)

Mary Henri

I was thinking about my grandmother, who was 92 when she died on this day in 1993, and then happened across this old photo while I was flipping around in some pictures after lunch -- and it made me laugh. She was a tiny woman -- probably not much more than five feet tall -- and she had a really thick crop of curly, gorgeously white hair. Even up through her 80s, she would still get down on the floor with her legs curled around her (not looking at all like an old woman!) when she played with her great-grandchildren. And, as you can see here, she was a really good sport. (This is a photo of an image that probably dates back to the late 70s.)

Related posts: Great Women ~ Early 1957

Wordless Wednesday

[No Wordless Wednesday link this week - the site's down]