The continuing family photos

Look, I found more photos, which I post here so they are archived someplace besides my laptop...and maybe someone out there who reads my blog actually knows these lovely people.

Caroline and Kate are sandwiching me on Thanksgiving.

Russ and Michelle, the lovely parents who brought Thanksgiving to my house, so we all could have a family feast.

I was allowed in the kitchen only to make some gravy...which is one of my specialties.

Quote for today:

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.   

Marcel Proust

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."

What's been happening?

Back at the old blog after my stay-cation.  Hi everyone!
I've rested, relaxed, done a few things I don't usually do, and skipped quite a few that I do usually do.

But first let me say how wonderful it felt just to say, no, not going to spend all that time on computer doing things.  I'm getting a lot wiser about my time these days.

However, I also want to report on my potting.

The above ladybug mugs are special order, and may or may not be exactly what they had in mind.  I'll find out Saturday at the Tailgate Market probably.  Yes, 2 of them look like pitchers, because my friend wanted to be able to pour the water without it dripping into a single cup coffee maker.  One of these pitchers is really good at that, the other not so much.  They also wanted a huge mug that could hold 16 oz (the one in the center will hold 20 oz.) I got a bit carried away.  I'll let you know what my dear patrons decide.

I also tackled a very big project which I've postponed till I retired, and since now I am starting the 8th year of no longer having salaried work, I decided to actually do it. 

Scan old photos of family, and then sort them and provide them to my 3 sons and their families digitally.  I've got a couple of hundred sorted by where and approximately when they were taken, and I've now spent about 10 hours work on them, and what do I have to show for it?  Maybe 1/3 of the sorted photos have been scanned, and labeled so anyone will know approximately when and where, and who.  I have decided to just do about an hour a night, as it's a good thing to do once the sun goes down, and when I've got the air conditioner humming away to make me happy.

Today's Quote: (note, I like having these little bits of wisdom at the end of my posts, that way I can leave you with good wishes that someone else was smart enough to come up with.)

Grief and gratitude are kindred souls, each pointing to the beauty of what is transient and given to us by grace.

Patricia Campbell Carlson
(Letter to a friend)