Old Memories

Amongst the many photos I've been going through, I came across this picture of a couple who clearly is family, but who I don't know really at all. I'm hoping by posting it that my Mom or someone else might recognize this glam couple from the 1920s.

I know it's not my Grandma, who married in about 1927 or 1928, because I have a photo of her in her beautiful '20s bob hairstyle, without the Joe Kennedy round glasses...
And amongst the memorabilia is a favorite picture of me with my Daddy.

It's hard to believe that this month he's been gone 17 whole years. I was 25 when he died, but in this picture I see his youth and strength, and my adoration for my papa.
Dad was a great guy...I know I talk about him now and then, but you really have to understand that while my Dad wasn't perfect, he worked HARD to be a good Dad.

His own father was quite absent, and in many ways his Mom was too. They worked hard to get through The Depression, and when that was over, Dad was headed out into the world himself.

Despite his cold parentage of the "Be seen and not heard" generation, my own father and mother chose to raise their kids in a much more loving environment. While my Mom was much better nurtured, she also had things to learn about how to be "real" in front of her kids when her own parents were not.

Both were prime examples of being better than their previous generations in their own way.

We can only hope to aim for the same goal as parents, yes?

Yes...

And amongst the memories is this last picture of me where a school picture turned out well.

The next year I was growing out my bangs, and I hairsprayed my bangs back in some sort of Farrah Fawcette wing job that didn't turn out well at all, and by the next year I was in the throes of adolescence, complete with glasses and a bad perm.

And while we're scanning a few photos, I got a bang out of this one. Three out of four people in this photo appear to want to kill not me, but the photo taker, who HAD to be my father, the family photographer.

Me the toddler: gleeful.

The rest: homicidal.

'nuff said.

And in the midst of my scanning and copying and saving photos, I found this picture of Hannah (left) and Nora (right), and put them side by side for no other reason than being able to compare the two. I don't have a picture of Miriam from about the same age or I'd do that too. But in all reality, Nora seems to have a lot of Hannah's traits and looks. The way she bounces around the yard is so similar to Hannah's phase of running positively EVERYWHERE as a toddler and small child, it's almost freaky! But I guess with only four sets of genes (Hannah and Nora are double cousins since BOTH sets of parents come from the same two families) -- well suffice to say it's no surprise.