1st grade school picture

This is a picture of me that was taken at the beginning of my school career.  I thought it was appropriate to repeat this picture since next week many schools will be starting up again for the coming school year.  My oldest grandchild will start second grade and a couple of my other grandkids will go back to pre-school.  Here's to an exciting year of learning.

in the shadows

I will say that this picture was taken during the summer of 1949.  I look like I am about one and a half years old.  My brothers are three and five years old.  And, that is our dad with us.  I am not sure who the other two children are that are in this picture.  I hope I am wearing slacks but if I'm not, holy cow!!, are my legs super chubby.  My goodness!  Two cylinders.  Uff-da!  However, my haircut sure is adorable.  It, also, looks like a nice sunny day.

stairwell surprise

I know this picture was taken in December as part of our Christmas card photo preparations but I thought now would be a good time to post this picture of the five of us.  I believe this was taken in 1954.  We are standing at the bottom of the stairwell that leads upstairs to our bedrooms.  This house is the first house I lived in.  I lived there for twelve years.  The house on Brookside Avenue is really a neat house.  It is a Cape Cod style house with dormer windows in the upstairs bedrooms and it has the coolest linen storage closet halfway down the hall.  The two bedrooms are separated, one on each end of the hallway, BUT if you are small enough you can squeeze through the  crawl space that runs the entire length of the upstairs.  Each bedroom has access to the crawl space by entering the small closet next to the front dormer.  The twins were the crawl space champs because they were the smallest.  Convincing them to crawl through the tunnel was not always that easy, though.  As we got older, and no longer fit in the space, we would shine flashlight signals to each other--mostly SOS in morse code.  The bedrooms were small, the closets were small, the bathroom was small.  What a great house!!

don't let this sweet smile fool you

There's so much more going on inside the head of this serene looking little girl.  Let's talk about it.

dad and me

This is just a very sweet picture of me and my dad.  The picture was taken in the summer of 1948.

three men on a pier

The top picture is one of my all time favorites.  (The bottom one--not so much.)  My dad and I were visiting with my sons as we gathered in San Diego for Christmas several years ago.  This picture was taken at the end of the San Diego pier in Ocean Beach.  I think the composition of this picture is particularly nice.  The two men on each end are looking in the same direction with their bodies in similar stances.  The guy in the middle is looking in a different direction while leaning against the railing in a very relaxed position.  All three men have their hands in their pockets.  Colorwise, the black garments worn by the men on each end serve as bookends.  The blue denim jean color transfers from one end to the middle and the color of the white ball cap in the middle transfers to the hat and sweater on the other end.  And, what about their facial expressions?  Two of the men are just gazing at the beach town on the shore and the gentleman on the left has a "What's up with you guys?" look on his face.  I love this picture and I love each and every one of these guys.  p.s. there's a chunky woman standing on a beach in the bottom picture.  I guess I know her.

dinner at Aunties

This picture goes way back to the late 1950's.  We are having dinner at Aunties house.  She is seated in the center  and my grandmother (Dad's mom) is seated to her left.  My three brothers and my sister and me are in the picture, as well.  I am not sure who else is in the picture with us.  Any ideas?

the Ehri side

Here is a wonderful picture of my mom and I, along with my brothers, standing with Auntie and Uncle Ed.  I am sure this picture was taken during the Spring of 1948.  I look like I am about three months old at the time.  Auntie and Uncle Ed took my mom and her siblings into their home when they were very young children and needed someplace to live and someone to care for them.  Auntie and Uncle Ed eventually became our grandparents and that is the way I think of them.  I always remember Auntie wearing a dress--never pants.  She usually wore a cotton day dress and always wore an apron when she worked in the kitchen.  She made most of her clothes.  The aprons were made from flour sacking materials.  Uncle Ed worked for Pillsbury Mills and had access to the flour sacks.  I understand there was quite an "in house" trading system at the mill where the workers would trade sacking so they could acquire more yardage of a given print.  The more yards of a specific print meant more fabric to use on a garment.  My mom had a love/hate relationship with the flour sack dresses.  As a girl, the fabric was passable but as she got older, the fabric was easily identifiable and was more embarrassing to wear.  But, this was what happened during the Great Depression.  You used what you had.  Anyway, I like this picture.  And, this is my mom's side of the family.  Now you know.

jean with squirt gun

Yep, that's me, pointing a squirt gun into my mouth and firing away.  You could do this back in the day (wa-a-ay back!!) and no one thought twice about it. I think so, anyway.  What do I really know?  I was about eighteen months old at the time.  Squirt guns were everywhere.  My older brothers were squirting everything in sight, including me.  Getting my hands on one was easy.  And, the cold water felt so good on a hot day.  The squirt of water tickled the back of my mouth.  How refreshing!  Am I wearing girls underpants or boys?  Did I mention I have older brothers?

us five as teens

I think this picture was taken in about 1960.  I believe I am about twelve years old at the time.  This may be one of those pictures that was taken with Christmas cards in mind.  This a nicely styled picture with our varying heights taken under consideration.  We are all dressed up and we look very nice.  It looks like the bird figure on the mantle is about to peck me in the head.  

my baby picture

There is a seventy year difference in age between the ladies pictured here.  The top picture was taken in 1948 and the lower picture was taken the other day in 2018.  It's hard to imagine what a baby will look like as they grow older.  Parents spend a lot of time wondering about that.  The answer to that question comes slowly as the years pass.  And then.....bingo!.....it's here.  Me then.  Me now.

more beach ball

O.K., so I am going to wrap up this series of "pics with beach balls" by posting these last two pictures (with the giant beach ball) that were taken during the summer of 1950.  Now my brothers and I are rolling the ball on the grass up at the cabin at Lake Villard.  I am two years old and the boys are four and six years old.  What fun!!

mom and me

I think this is a really nice picture of my mom and me.  It was taken in 1948 and we are sitting on the front entry steps to Auntie and Uncle Ed's house in south Minneapolis.

family pic

Oh my!!  Look at all of us.  We certainly are a good looking bunch.  I don't know where this picture was taken.  We could even have been on a camping trip.  It wasn't unusual for us to dress up for church or other special occasions even if we popped out of a tent at a campground.  The boys are all wearing horizontal stripe tee shirts, as was the style for boys back then.  My sister is wearing a lovely cotton dress and I am wearing one of my all time favorite plaid dresses.  Mom and Dad look pretty spiffy, too.  I think this was taken in 1954.  I was six years old at the time.  Nice pic.

gertrude, paul and me

Here's a goofy picture of me and my aunt Gertrude and my uncle Paul.  It looks like we are playing in the back yard of the parsonage on Brookside Avenue.  I would say this picture was taken in 1953.  I look like I am about five years old.  It must be Sunday.  Everyone looks so dressed up.

beach ball madness

How do you cool off on a hot summer day?  Go jump in the lake and take the beach ball with you.  Here I am with my brothers getting ready to play in the water at one of the over 10,000 lakes in Minnesota.  I am thinking this was taken during the summer of 1950 at Lake Villard.  Looks like we are having a good time.

a college graduate

Here we go again with another graduation picture.  This time the honors go to my older brother.  We are four years apart in age so his college graduation was at about the same time as my high school graduation.  My mom and us five kids (excuse me-young adults) are posing for a picture that was taken by my dad.  The white dress that I am wearing was the same dress that I wore on my graduation Day.  It also looks like it was a good hair day.

high school graduation

I finally found the correct pictures that show me on my high school graduation day in June of 1966.  I am marching into the football stadium with the other seven hundred and twenty five seniors as we prepare for our graduation ceremony.  What a major milestone in a young person's life.  An ending.  A beginning.  High hopes for an unknown future.  All smiles.  (and, a really close shot of me as I walked by.  Thanks, Dad.)

Auntie, Uncle Ed and me

My goodness!!  What was I laughing at?  It's 1948 and I'm sitting with Auntie and Uncle Ed in the living room of the Brookside Avenue parsonage.  Notice how the couch is baby proofed with a blanket and towels.  And that sure is a lovely hand crochet doily placed neatly on the back of the couch.  Doilies were still very much in style as home decor at that time.  It looks like there is a Christmas tree set up in the corner right next to the couch.  It must be December and that would make me about eleven months old.  Look how sweetly Auntie is smiling.  I believe Uncle Ed always wore a three piece suit for dress up occasions.  I always remember him wearing a vest and tie.  Auntie and Uncle Ed cared for my mom when she was growing up and Mom was thoughtful and cared for them as they got older.  I cherish pictures like this.  This is my family.

the winner

I believe this one won...or was it this one??  You know, if an indoor picture doesn't work, go outside and try a different angle.  And, that's what we did.  We bundled up (it was cold that night) and took a nice family photo of us kids standing in front of the Airstream trailer.  Whichever picture was chosen (and they were all cute), the Christmas greeting went out on schedule that December of 1958 and a heartfelt peace on earth was wished to everyone.

three takes

Try, try, try again.  Every year just before Christmas my parents organized a family photo session with the intent of getting a good picture of us kids for the family Christmas greeting card.  Some years we went to a photography studio for a professional portrait.  Other years it was Dad with the camera taking our picture.  I came across several pictures that were taken in sequence during one evening of trying to get the perfect group shot.  Same suspects, different locations.

We started out seated on the couch in the living room and then moved the action to the piano located in the corner.  Duane actually played the piano so it was only fitting that he be seated on the piano bench.  I think we were "fake" singing and I was obviously overacting.  If inside the house didn't work, then move on to the trailer.  Yes, that's us, all of us, sitting very closely on the couch/pullout bed in the Airstream travel trailer.  I actually remember this photo session.  It was December of 1958.  We had just gotten the Airstream that summer and this was a good opportunity to use it in a family photo.  One thing I remember about this evening is getting dressed up so that we looked nice for the picture.  The general rule in our house was that when you came home from school, you always changed out of your school clothes and into play clothes.  We didn't have a lot of clothes so we needed to keep the good stuff in good condition.  Having to change back into our good clothes after supper was a bit of a chore.  Especially since we were going to put on pajamas in a short while.  But, we did it and we even combed our hair nicely.  So, this is what we did in early December every year.  We took our annual Christmas card picture.  Say cheese!!

one of THOSE pictures

Have you ever gotten a group of people together so that you can take a nice picture of the whole bunch of them and then had THIS happen?  Someone's head gets cut off, too much sun in the face, looking the wrong way, not looking at all or the dreaded scowling face.  Yep, it's all here.  And, you know who you are.  The summer of 1953 somewhere in middle America.  Yup.     oh oh, tilt-y head.

mother and daughter

I think this is a very sweet picture of my mother and me.  It was taken in the Spring of 1948.  I recognize the window and shutters from the parsonage on Brookside Avenue.  I love the frilly bonnet I am wearing.  Thank you, Mom, for loving me.

ten month comparison

The top picture was taken in September of last year.  The picture below was taken in July of this year.    I look about the same.  Minor changes.  One thing that never changes is the size of my forehead.  It's huge.  Family trait.  Born that way.  Stuck with it.  hohoho  Laughing at myself.

my birthday cake

A couple of years ago while I was visiting my sister in Atlanta, she surprised me with birthday cake and dinner with family at her house.  Notice I put dessert first.  I have my priorities straight.  Thank you, Susan, for the wonderful surprise.  p.s. I was just turning three as you can tell by counting the number of candles on the cake.