The Old Man and the Sea

I love this picture. Dad is in the Gulf of Mexico. I figure he is in his 20's.

What kind of fish is that? I'd say it was a truncheon.

 

Cathy in the early 1950's

Mom told me that the baby carriage in the picture had been hers when she was a little girl.

This is probably in Livingston or Mobile. 

Fontaine, Jan, and Ricky

Here are Uncle Fontaine, Ricky, and Aunt Jan in the early 1950's. Because Fontaine lived much closer to us than Mom's other brothers, we got together with his family (including Jennifer later) much more often when I was growing up. Anytime my brothers talk about visiting Fontaine's family, they will always remember Freddie the dog.

 

Washington Monument (No, Really!)

I'm a bit chagrined about my earlier mistake identifying Mom at the Washington Monument. However, I would like to point out that Mom (and family) did visit Uncle Jim's family in Washington on occasion (well, at least one), and they were known to visit area landmarks such as... oh... the Washington Monument.

From L to R, we have Uncle Jim, Dad, Mark, Aunt Win, Mom, and David. Let's say this is about 1959 or 1960. Cathy must have taken the picture.

In the background is a Robert Mills design on the National Mall. 

1988

Hard to believe that 1988 was 18 years ago.

Uncle Jim's family beautifully hosted Mom, her brothers, and all the offspring in Philadelphia in what became an every-three-year event.

From L to R, we have our branch of the tree: (front) Matthew, Judy, Mom, Dad, Cathy, John, (back) Andrew, Mark, David, Danny, Ryan, and Tom.

I knew it was a great time, but I suppose now that I didn't understand then how great it was.

 

What's the opposite of a snowbird?

Mom and Dad are a jaunty pair in this picture from the early 1990's (or perhaps a bit earlier).

They don't see weather like that often. My guess is that they are visiting Uncle John in Ohio.

 

Grandfather

I never really knew Mom's father. I have a vague memory of him from my early childhood that might be more reinforced by pictures and stories than from my actual interaction with him. He died soon after I turned two years old.

I am trying to remember what I can recall about him. Some of the things that come to mind first...

• He went to Southern University in Greensboro (now Birmingham-Southern College) and was in the Class of 1899 (or was it 1898?).
  
• He was a farmer and a one term member of the Alabama state legislature.
  
• He served as Sunday School Superintendent of Ivy Creek Methodist Church for fifty years.
  
• He reared four fine children, all of whom graduated from college at a time when that was not so common.

I always liked a story about how much he liked coffee. One night he told my grandmother that he was thinking about warming up coffee in the fireplace. She asked him what he was going to do when it kept him up all night. He replied, "I guess I'll lie in bed and think about how good it was."

 

Washington Mom-ument (or not)

My guess is that Mom is visiting her brother Jim in Washington in the 1940's - maybe later. What is that wrapped around the Washington Monument?

Sharp suit and a cool 'do.

Update: Well, I thought that was the Washington Monument in the distance behind her, but the National Park Service informs otherwise (my emphasis added):

Your mother is sitting in front of a monument which is an Egyptian obelisk sitting on a rectangular stone base with a very pronounced molding at the top of the base. Obelisks were commonly used as tombstones in cemeteries in the 19th century with names and dates carved on the base. The Washington Monument is a pure obelisk shaft which sits directly on the ground. There is no rectangular base. Your mother is not sitting in front of the Washington Monument. She is perhaps sitting in a cemetery in front of a obelisk shaped tombstone. The Washington Monument is also much larger than the obelisk shown in the photograph. The shadow on the obelisk is puzzling.

Thanks to Gary Scott, Regional Chief Historian of the National Park Service, for setting me straight.

So the question now is, where is this place?

Further Update (2/3/05): The very helpful Perry Wheelock of the National Park Service believes that if Mom was in Washington for this photo, she may have been in Meridian Hill Park in northwest Washington. Several obelisks are there, and the pretty park has been a popular spot for photographs - particularly on Easter. Could that be a shadow of a tree limb on the obelisk? Meridian Hill Park is between the Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant areas of the city.

Risk-y Business

Games have often been a big part of family get-togethers. Mark, Matthew, David, John, Judy, and Danny (clockwise, starting from front left) are home in Athens (probably during the Christmas season) gathered around the Risk board to engage in Parker Brothers' game of world conquest. You can tell it's early in the game because everyone to the left of the red sweater is still smiling.

(That's Mom's family piano in the background.) 

June 1953

Most of the old family pictures are in quite a jumble. Pictures are loose in a box next to other pictures decades older with no discernible order. That is one reason I particularly enjoyed finding the booklet of ten pictures from around June 1953 that came back from the developer in a set. Here is a recap of all ten pictures (from first to last) that were shown below:

1. Mark playing in the water
   
2. Mark and Cathy handsomely dressed
   
3. Spring Hill Avenue Methodist Church
   
4. Mark and Cathy at the church
   
5. Mark, Cathy, & friends at pool party
   
6. Two year old Mark and birthday cake
   
7. Mark, Cathy, and cake
   
8. Mark, Cathy & the DuBose boys
   
9. Mark and Dad playing in water
   
10. Mark and Mom playing in water

Wade in the Water

Looks like Mom took the previous picture and handed the camera to Dad for this picture of Mom and Mark from the summer of 1953. This is the last of ten pictures that was returned from the developer in a spiral bound booklet of ten. 

Before Papa was Papa he was Dad

This is the ninth picture of the booklet of ten mentioned below, but I am tempted to think that this is a different occasion from Mark's birthday party. Would Mom (knee deep in water, I suppose) be taking this picture of Dad engaged in play with Mark while the other young partygoers are playing in and around the water?

Good picture. 

Pause in Party Play

The DuBose boys have paused the water frolic long enough to join Mark (2nd from right) and Cathy for the promise of cake and liquid refreshment at Mark's second birthday party. Almost-five year old Cathy is planning her escape route. Hand-to-face remains a popular pose for toddler Mark (see here, here, and here) in this booklet of ten pictures from June of 1953.

Show Cathy your cake!

Cathy has the look of one begrudgingly going along with her little brother's birthday party. Looks like the cups are out and ready for the guests. Mark seems to know whose cake it is!

From June of 1953, this picture is the seventh in the booklet of ten. 

Mark turns two

Mark turns two. Mom has written on the back of this picture, "Was it a cake or a pancake?"

This is the sixth picture of the ten in the spiral bound booklet mentioned below.

Looks like a happy little boy.

 

Once you find a favorite finger, go with it

Mom wrote on the back:

At Johnson's Lake, Mobile. The DuBose boys from across the street (Edington Drive), the Everrett girls, Terry Oshita & Cathy & Mark

I figure one of the Dubose boys is far left in the water and one is kneeling at poolside. The Everrett girls must be 2nd from left in the water and far right. Terry Oshita is in the middle in the water. Cathy is 2nd from right in the water. Mark is standing up.

This is from June 1953, and the gathering may be on the occasion of Mark's second birthday.

This picture is the fifth out of ten pictures that came back from the developer in a spiral bound booklet. For pictures, some people have preferred light, favorite clothes, or a a good side, but in this picture and this earlier picture in the same collection, you can see that Mark has a favorite finger.

Big day in Mobile

Looks like Mark and Cathy have big water fun ahead of them in this picture from June, 1953. Mark is right at two years old, and Cathy is right at five. This picture appears to be taken at Spring Hill Avenue United Methodist Church.

This is the fourth picture in the spiral bound booklet of ten, and so I guess that it must have been taken at about the same time that the picture of the church was taken, the third picture in the booklet.

I see on the church's website that the new building had its first worship service in March of 1952, so the building here is barely a year old.

Spring Hill Avenue

Mom has written on the back of this picture, "Beautiful Spring Hill Ave. Methodist Church, Mobile." This is the third picture in the booklet of ten.

In the 1990's, I met a young man in youth ministry who had grown up in the Spring Hill Avenue United Methodist Church. I mentioned that he was too young to know my dad but that my dad had served that church. He asked Dad's name, repeated it a few times, and then lit up his eyes. "Yes! My dad was there when your father was at the church. He talks about your father a lot. To this day, he still says that your father was the most caring minister, the most pastoral minister, that our church ever had." He went on for a bit about how his dad often talked about my father.

And I was much impressed that some forty years after the fact, a family still remembered Dad's time there in such glowing terms.

Mark Discovers Finger Food

Cathy always seemed to look out for others, and I mean that in the best possible way. Gracious, kind, thoughtful, practical, incisive... not to mention very intelligent and beautiful. And she loved family. Here she is right at 5 years old, (maybe just shy of 5), with her two year-old brother (or almost two) in tow.

I don't remember seeing her in many pictures with pigtails, but maybe there are many.

This is the second picture in the spiral-bound booklet of ten.

Why do people say "not to mention such-and-such" when they are in the very act of mentioning such-and-such?

Mark, ~ June, 1953

This is Mark right around age 2.

Does anyone know how long before a little boy gets tired of playing with a cup in the water?

---

This is the first picture in a spiral bound booklet of 10 pictures. The pictures themselves are printed on photographic paper with holes on one edge for binding.

The covers of the booklet are dark blue, and the the front cover reads "Picturewise... Vantone Prints are better!" The back cover reads "Processed by Van's Photo Supply, Gulf Coast's Largest Photo Finishers."

The pictures themselves are about 3" square and they have an additional border about a quarter-inch wide. That makes the pictures about 3.5" square not counting the extra long edge that has the holes for the spiral binding.

The backs of the pictures have a watermark that reads "Kodak VELOX Paper."

 

Big Doors

Where was this picture of Dad taken? One of his churches? At Boston University when he received his doctorate? I would guess that this is in the 1950's. I do not recall ever seeing Dad in a double-breasted suit on any other occasion.

Dad was a relatively quiet man distinguished by his intelligence, compassion, dignity, integrity, discipline, Christian faith, and love for family, among other qualities. I have long had great respect for him.

I think of him as having uncommon discipline.

If there was anything on his plate that he did not like so much (like greens, for example), he ate ALL of it before he ate a bite of anything else. Said he couldn't enjoy the rest of his meal if he knew he still had to eat something he didn't enjoy as much. (Mom told me once that she knew something in the meal was not a hit if Dad ate it all before he started on anything else.)

Whenever we had boiled shrimp, he would always peel EVERY shrimp on his plate before he would taste even one.

He paid cash every time he bought a new car.

Disciplined in small ways, disciplined in large ways.

(And those are big doors.)

 

Reunited... and it feels so good

If we keep on the same schedule, Mom's side of the family will have a reunion this year. Every three years since 1988, Mom, her brothers, their children, and grandchildren have gathered to laugh, tell old and new stories, and catch up with one another. Different branches take turns hosting the reunion. The family is spread to both coasts and from New England to Florida, but absences are rare. It's a joy to have extended family that enjoys being together as much as this one does.

The family of cousin Barbara and her mom Aunt Win (on the outsides above) hosted us beautifully in south Florida over Thanksgiving weekend in 2000. George and young Nina (in the middle) are the progeny of Uncle John and Aunt Nina.

You can see that south Florida at the end of November puts everyone in a good mood.

5 Year Old Teddy Roosevelt

Here is five year-old David in Mobile Marianna in 1960, with a big stick and perhaps walking softly.

Notice that when David has a stick, his siblings are not in the picture.

 

John & Nina and the Telegram story

Uncle John and Aunt Nina were married in 1944 in West End Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Mom wore the same wedding dress when she and Dad were married the next year. (You can see a picture here.)

One of my favorite family stories...

Before John and Nina were married, he was studying to be an Army doctor at Johns Hopkins, and Nina was in college in Atlanta. Word got to him that Nina was engaged to be married to a Navy man. John borrowed money from his brother Jim to hop on the train to Atlanta to try to make things right with Nina. The war was on, he did not have permission to leave, and he was technically AWOL. Navy Military Police were on the train but were only checking passes of the Navy men. They were not interested in John, an Army man.

Brother Jim made John promise to let Jim know how it went down south. Telegrams were charged by the word, so John succinctly sent word of how his effort was going to win Nina back. His telegram to Jim read in its entirety:

Army 7, Navy 6, 3rd quarter

The story ended happily for us as John wooed dear, gracious Nina away and into the family.

 

Cathy, David, Mark, ~1957

Sometimes we would take a long time to take all the pictures on a roll, and even longer to take the film to be developed. Months might go by before a roll was taken to the drugstore to be developed. I recall that it could take weeks to get the film back. Many months (or even longer) might pass before you would see the photographs you had taken. If any pictures did not turn out, they were lost forever. (And we were not frivolous people who took many pictures of the same scene.)

The envelope of photographs that you picked up at the drugstore was like a treasure chest of jewels and gold that had been buried in the past. The excitement and anticipation... what was on this roll? I don't remember. Did they turn out okay?

When Mark got his Polaroid camera, it truly was amazing. See a picture the same day?? In minutes even? That was voodoo. (You can see one of Mark's Polaroid miracles here.)

Now, of course, you can see a picture instantly with a digital camera. Take five or ten and keep the best one. Crop. Edit. No waiting. Prints in an hour.

Clearly, this picture of Cathy, David and Mark was taken on the same occasion as this one here.

 

Seesaw Seen

Cathy and Dad in seesaw fun. I have been in exactly this pose with our Sam, who loved it. We have been to many parks and have found a seesaw exactly once. I suspect they must now have a reputation for creating injuries and so are hard to find.

This must be about 1950.