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My husband’s brother posted a few photos on Facebook after our last big snow storm.. and though he lives in a old farmhouse north of us and has a lot more property than we do? I was surprised at just how run down he looked after finishing his snow blowing.
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Yup.
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There’s one in every family.
🤣
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Another treasure made its way up from the basement the other day and while I won’t bore you with the ridiculous amount of minutia my mother recorded during my first year of life in this baby book (Aunt Charlotte gifted us a silver spoon, woot!)….. I would like to point out that at age five?
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I was apparently as round as I was tall.
🤣
I have to admit while the information itself didn’t mean much, holding a book filled with my late mother’s handwriting did make me choke up a little.
Do mothers even do this anymore… or is there just an app? Because I gotta say, fifty years from now when a grown up child finds that? No tears will be shed.
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Here’s the last batch of old family photos I’ll share.
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From right to left – my uncle, my aunt and presumably my father… theintrepid butterfly hunter.
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My great aunt and an unidentified child, perhaps my aunt. From the look of their clothes, I’m guessing they were not ardent PETA supporters.
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These next few shots are of the Henley Regatta.
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Part of the English social season, the annual rowing competition originated in 1839 and takes place on the River Thames.
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It also looks like a good excuse to buy a new hat.
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My uncle and aunt. Because no well dressed toddler should be without a parasol.
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My grandmother, still not smiling… with my aunt and uncle in their garden. Sadly, my uncle was another relative I never met. He was killed in a car accident on Christmas Day at the age of 30.
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My grandfather in the garden.
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And finally, another garden party shot of Wednesday Addams with my father and uncle.
🤣
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I’m still sorting through the cornucopia of old family photos my husband unearthed in the basement … like this one of my grandfather (middle) who seems a tad overdressed for fishing.
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And this one… where he’s enjoying a backyard garden party with Wednesday Addams.
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It’s frustrating because very few of the photos are labeled or identify the subjects. So when I came across this picture I was thrilled.
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My grandfather was a well off Englishman who traveled the world and it doesn’t surprise me in the least that he was sailing on the Lusitania. Eager to discover who his companions were, I researched the man on the left and came up empty. But the gentleman on the right?
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Evander Berry Wall (January 14, 1861 – May 4, 1940[2]) was a New York City socialite and later an American expatriate in France during the Belle Époqueand beyond. He was famous for his extravagantly refined look and was crowned “King of the Dudes” in the 1880s.
The King of Dudes?
How bloody marvelous.
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My father and his father before him were both snappy dressers known for their sartorial splendor so I’m sure Berry felt right at home.
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A wise man, old Berry.
🤣
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Since my husband has been wasting time and money working in the basement, it was inevitable he’d discover some treasure. And for the first time in a long time… I’m not being sarcastic when I say that.
To my delight, he came upstairs the other day with these.
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A box full of old photo albums given to me by my late father’s sister years ago when she was moving. She gave us all kinds of unwanted things that were basement bound but these must have gotten mixed in with the rest, and sadly I’d forgotten all about them.
The photos are old, taken in England between 1910 and 1920… and just for fun I thought I’d share a few.
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My father as a boy. A well dressed dapper little lad, no?
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My grandfather and my aunt. Another dapper gentleman.
Unfortunately I never met him, as he died when my dad was 10 years old.
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My grandmother and another aunt.
I was 2 when my grandmother passed and have no memory of her. It may have been the era, but I don’t possess a single photo of her smiling either.
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My grandfather with two unidentified children. Apparently one of them was a daisy.
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My father loved the sea, as is evidenced by him taking the tiller at an early age.
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This is his older brother, who clearly was only trusted with toy boats.
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My grandmother and uncle. Oh, that hat!
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My grandfather, left, with an unidentified man in Cuba. Pops was a world traveler.
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My grandfather and father. Did no one ever smile for pictures back then?
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My father, building his own mini Stonehenge in Cornwall.
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It won’t take much time.
I promise.
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This is an easy one for me. Calves liver with onions. My parents were fans, but I’ve been known to run screaming from the room at the mere sight of it. Basically any organ meat will elicit a similar reaction, but my mother cooked this on a regular basis so I had lots of practice avoiding it.
Liver tonight? Gee mom, I can’t. Softball practice.
Liver? Sorry mom, art club meeting.
Dessicated cow organs? I’d love to… but the circus is in town and they need a new elephant handler.
Any excuse would do. But she got wise after a while and decided to force me to eat it one night. Silly woman, thinking she could out stubborn 10 year old me.
She served dinner… I ate the potatoes and vegetables and left the liver untouched. She told me I would eat it. I told her I would not. She said I couldn’t get up from the table until it was gone. I said no problem and settled in for the night. If I wouldn’t eat it freshly cooked and hot did she really think I’d eat it cold and congealed?
The war of wills had begun, but after an hour and a half my father… ever the peacemaker…. let our notorious food stealing beagle in the back door and I ( accidentally, of course ) dropped my plate on the floor.
Bye bye liver.
My mother lost that battle and never tried to force me to eat it again. She did continue to serve it though.
🤢
How about you? What meal haunted your childhood dinner table…
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Because you know I’ll never run out of these.
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The instant I read this a mental image of my mother standing impatiently waiting for me to get to the point flashed through my brain.
I was a creative child who loved to read, one more apt to be found at the library than the playing field. A good story always held me spellbound. So when I’d come running into the house anxious to tell my mother something interesting… but in the telling ended up weaving a long disjointed tale that made me forget the original thread…. she’d always shrug her shoulders, turn away and say, “It must not have been very important.”
To which I always wanted to scream, “Now I remember! The house is on fire.” … like that would teach her to take me seriously.
Ah, childhood.
Good times.
What did your mother always say to you?
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It never ceases to amaze me what’s currently popular on Amazon.
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Is there really a plethora of suburban housewives eager to present a Jello brain at their next dinner party? I have my doubts, but whatever.
Being retired military, my husband and I try to take advantage of all the benefits that provides. For years we bought cheaper, tax free groceries at the commissary…. until George W. Bush closed our local base. There was a huge outcry from retirees in our area and talk of shuttering the base but keeping the commissary open. Sadly that didn’t happen, and now the nearest base is over two hours away. A four and a half hour round trip for groceries seems extreme but with the prices of everything going sky high, we decided to take a day and check it out.
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Perdue boneless skinless chicken breasts for under $3.00? I’ve been paying close to $9.00! Needless to say I filled a cart and then some. Even using half a tank of gas I still saved mucho dinero. Looks like we’ll have to make a monthly pilgrimage from now on.
If you’re on Facebook you’re familiar with the “memories” that pop up on your feed. I don’t normally pay much attention… ten years ago today I posted a picture of a woodchuck? Shocking! Please alert the press. But the other day this picture gave me pause..
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Not because we were younger and thinner.. although, damn. I really do miss thin… but because when I took a closer look, I realized four of the 13 family members pictured have passed. My husband’s brother, brother in law, mother, and aunt. Being an only child of an only child, my list of relatives is ridiculously small. I’ve lost both parents so I’m pretty much done. But the husband is one of nine from one of six, so the chances of someone missing from his side of the family photos increases exponentially.
😰
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We recently discovered a branch of my husband’s family owned a farm in a nearby town back in the day. A long lost relative even showed us a picture.
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Interested in the history, I did some research to try to find its exact location.
Due to my superior sleuthing, I found it.
Problem is, I was 70 odd years too late.
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In the town’s historical society, I found this picture of it burning to the ground in 1951.
Shame, that. It looked like a lovely place.
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My husband’s cousin’s son (is that second cousin?) is a doctor. He was the first physician who diagnosed my late mother’s terminal cancer and was the epitome of professionalism with compassion.
And if that’s not impressive enough? I’ve just discovered he’s been hiding a whole lotta artistic talent under that white coat.
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Apparently the basement of his old Victorian home is being turned into a shrine to rock and roll.
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He just started posting pictures of his work and all I could think was, damn.
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The boy has mad skills.
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River's world..... 