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Thursday, August 27, 2015

A good old crowd

I've missed Sepia Saturday for a couple of weeks...just plain too busy to check my friends' posts, let alone find something to share.

But the prompt this week reminded me of some photos in an old album from my ex-husband's family.

I started out with a "wagon load" of folks, piled high on a car for their photo.  And I do believe these are only females!  This photo was pasted onto a black paper photo album, top center shown below.

On the same sheet from the album were other interesting shots, of the same unknown people...


I cropped some of them because I wanted to see more of what was going on.

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The photo on the upper left is another group shot with everyone squeezed together in front of some outbuilding...but it includes men as well as women!  The man kneeling in the dark suit on the left might be my son's grandfather Norman Heym, but it depends upon when it was taken.

The upper right photo has some young women sitting on a pipe that runs between two posts (hitching post?)...and some people who weren't aware at all their picture was being captured as they walked to the right.  This house was the home of the Louis Hillyers, my ex-husband's mother's family, in Michigan.

This is one of my favorites, with a group of people doing all kinds of strange and wonderful things.  Notice the teakettle, frying pan and ax.  Did I mention the family had friends who were theatrical?


Too bad the camera jiggled on this one, where one of the posing people (gentleman?) had a strange looking face.

This is my favorite shot, a little person watching the "big girls" hanging on the pipe...letting their hair down!

And finally, on another sheet, someone denoted who was at this house.  Louis and Gertrude Hillyer are parents of Mary (pretty young girl in this photo) who was my older son's grandmother that they probably don't remember.  She died when they were young boys.  She was born in 1907 in New York city, but the family moved to central Michigan when she was 3.  Her father and mother spent the rest of their lives farming, having retired from the stage.

The outfits worn by the women in most of the photos are from the 20's by my guess.  But the last photo on the porch must have been quite a bit earlier, by Gerturde wearing a long dress. So I'd guess Mary would have been younger than 10, sometime around 1912-1917.

Would that one photo have included her husband to be, Norman Heym?  Actually it's unlikely.  They didn't marry until she was 24, in 1932.  I wish I knew the story of how they met...but that's part of the family history that I've missed.

I'd recommend checking over at Sepia Saturday HERE to see what other bloggers have shared (go to bottom of the page where their names are listed by numbers, and just click on the links).



Describing a "...photograph of "Walsh's Royal Mail And Day Car" from the National Library Of Ireland archives. If you are joining in you can feature old photographs which - in some way or another - connect to any theme you choose to identify from this photograph."

23 comments:

  1. that's one strong pipe, what a hoot to see the photos.

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  2. I think the one with the mask is also a woman. Could be wrong, but the shape looks like it to me.

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  3. I love looking at old photographs even when I know nothing about the people in them. We had a pipe like that at our elementary school and we used to tuck in our dresses and flip around just like those little girls. It was such fun until we got dizzy.

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    1. I do believe I tried it somewhere also...the first time was a bit scary!

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  4. The picture of the girls hanging over the pipe immediately reminded me of prompt picture #177, May 18, 2013 where boys hung every which way over a sort of pipe fence. I love the picture of Mary with her parents Louis & Gertrude on the porch. Already - possibly younger than 10, she's quite the little lady with her legs so casually crossed at the knees. :)

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  5. What a delightful collection of crowds. And who wouldn't give an A++ to the girls hanging on the pipe? Fun!

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    1. Thanks Wendy...a crowd made of friends with a bit of impish humor in them.

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    1. Thanks Sean, and we have no idea who the photographer was either!

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  7. What a fun collection. I agree with Kristin that the masked man is a woman but so is the person in pants on the left and the black stocking woman on the right is a man! Cross dressing snapshots were a fad in this era. That hitching post could tell a lot of stories.

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  8. Great snaps, I just love those old black paper scrapbooks and albums. You find some wonderful history in them. I have been absent to long hope to post next sepia sat.

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    1. Glad you're considering coming back to SS too. I've been so happy meeting all these friendly people from all over the world...and reading their great posts.

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  9. Agree with everybody who thinks the men are women -- cross-dressing WAS a big fad! The pipe itself is fabulous; all curved from all the weight and stress of hundreds of kids fooling around!.

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    1. Yes, Deb...and hundreds of grown ups fooling around too!

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  10. The others have said it all. A most interesting collection.

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  11. I am always a big fan of old un-posed photos that just capture the scene. That one very moment in time frozen forever. I enjoy inspecting them closely for all the little details and elements of how life was lived at the time! It's so fascinating! And the photo of the children upside down on the metal pipe was just too cute.

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    1. Me too, Dani, a glimpse of real life in a candid photo is so much more relaxed and true to show the person's character.

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  12. Love that photo of the girls hanging upside down,. Just wondering, is your ex happy for you to be posting these photos, not that any of the subjects would still be around of course.

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Thanks for your comments...