For some reason, September and October are important months in my family and my husband’s as well. Lots of birthdays, anniversaries and death dates in those two months. So in honor of all the October events, I’m putting up a couple of family photos today.
The first is a very fuzzy copy of an old cabinet card. The lady in the picture is my husband’s (maternal) great-grandmother, Louisa Matilda Kuentz (nicknamed “Lucy”) who was born October 6, 1869, in San Antonio TX. Her mother and father had both been born in Alsace Lorraine, France, and emigrated to this country in about 1850. Not easy to make out her features, but you can tell she must have spent quite a while with a curling iron.
The second photo has also deteriorated over time – I gave it a slight crop, but didn’t do a lot of retouching. It’s a snapshot of my grandparents shortly after they were married on October 8, 1918. My grandfather still has his WWI cavalry uniform on, so it must have been taken very soon after their wedding. He was born in Scranton PA, into a family that had only recently arrived from Wales. He was stationed in San Antonio during the war and met my grandmother there, and just stayed on after the fighting was over. Well, that’s not entirely true – there was a lot of fighting between the two of them after the war, too – but that’s another story.
I've never seen that pic of MaMa and PaPa! In fact, I have never seen a picture of MaMa smiling! It is hard to believe she was only 16! I see a lot of my mother there, mostly the deep set eyes. Very cool picture.
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ReplyDeleteYes, I was surprised by the smile, too. And she does look a lot like your mother here. The original is tiny, and was apparently taken in an alley somewhere. There was a garbage can over to the left in the original - I cropped it out, but didn't manage to remove the lid. You can still see it on the ground. How unromantic!
Actually, I wonder if this is the day they got married because if you look closely, PaPa has on a wedding ring. I think I have a companion pic to this because he is in uniform and she is wearing the same thing! I will post it but mine isn't much better.
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