Saturday Snapshot: PaPa

I have a huge collection of family photos from both my family and Michael's. More from his, actually. His grandmother knew I was interested in genealogy, so when she died she left all her photos to me — and she had a bunch. I'm hoping to get them all organized and digitized this year, so I've been (slowly) going through all the albums and boxes, trying to put names to faces and figure out where each photo might have been taken. It's really difficult since our parents and grandparents have all passed on now. And our mothers wouldn't have been much help anyway — neither of them cared anything about family history. (Although my mom loved a bit of juicy family gossip as much as anyone, she always told me she thought it was "dangerous" delving too far into what happened in the past.)

But I'm determined to get it all sorted out someday. So I'll keep on scanning. Well, just as soon as we buy the new scanner — our old one doesn't really work with the new computer. Bummer.

Anyway, today's snap is from one of the batches I managed to scan before the system stopped cooperating. Since he was born in January (1896), I thought it would be appropriate to post this photo of my grandfather (my mother's father — "PaPa" to his grandkids) with my grandmother and my mother.

Mamma looks to be about a year old here, so this would have been taken around 1922, probably in San Antonio where they lived. She also looks like she's not too happy, but I imagine that frown is just from the sun in her eyes. Although she frequently used that same frown as an adult, and it could freeze you in your tracks.

PaPa was not a tall man — my grandmother was barely five feet tall and he looks to be about the same height here, although I think it looks like she's wearing high heels. In most of the photos I have of him, he's sitting down. A later photo, probably taken in the early 1940s, shows him and my grandmother with three of their four children — my mother is on the right, with her younger brother and baby sister beside her. There was another sister (the second child, after my mother), and I suspect she was the photographer for this one.

As I look at this snap, I'm realizing how much I'm starting to look like both my grandmother and my grandfather. Funny how genetics tends to creep up on a person, isn't it?

Well, happy Saturday, everyone! And now — back to my organizing.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Melinda @ West Metro Mommy Reads.

To see more snaps or participate yourself, just head on over to her blog.

ABC Wednesday: "M" is for...

Well, naturally --

MOTHER!!!

And today, it's even more definitely for Mother, Mom, Mamma, Mommie because today would have been my mother's 91st birthday. I miss her so much, and this is one of my favorite photos of her. She was probably about twenty (or maybe younger) in this one, and the photographer must have said something really funny to inspire that grin -- generally, she hated having her picture taken.

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Saturday Snapshot: Mom and Dad

I wrote this post several years ago for my family history blog, which I've mostly neglected ever since. But as the anniversary date has rolled around again, I figured I'd recycle it for Saturday Snapshot.

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This would have been my parents' 70th wedding anniversary. I wanted to put up a photo in honor of the day, so I went searching through my albums. I knew I wouldn't find a wedding photo because there weren't any. My mom and dad were married in 1942, two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and just before my father enlisted in the Navy. It was a sudden decision, with the ceremony performed at the county courthouse – no fancy trappings or guests. And no commemorative photos.

But just finding a photograph of the two of them together was a challenge. Neither of them really liked having their picture taken, so they rarely sat for professional photographers. This shot is one of the earliest I found – taken in 1939 when they were high school sweethearts. They "went together" for a number of years before he popped the question. According to my mom's version of the romantic tale, he told her if she'd just get a job they could get married!

Well, she never got that job – her only ambition was to be a housewife and mother. And it took the uncertainty of a World War to push my father into action. They were happily married for fifteen years – until he died of heart failure a few months before his 37th birthday. My mother outlived him by forty-four years, and never remarried.

Yes, he was very tall – unfortunately, his height is something I didn't inherit. And although in this photo my mother looks like she's dressed herself from Salvation Army bins, she ordinarily had a much sharper fashion sense!

I miss them both.

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Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books, and as she says: "To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don't post random photos that you find online."

Birthday Girl

My mother was born on April 11th in 1921.
She would have been ninety years old, today!

1921-2001

She died on Easter Sunday in 2001. She always said she thought she'd die on her birthday, and she only missed it by a few days. She would have hated being 90 - she didn't really care much for old people.

Spring is always a time of very mixed emotions for me.

Retirement: First Report

Huzzah!!!! Even though it was Saturday and he wouldn't have been at work anyway, yesterday was my husband Michael's official retirement date. Today he is an authentic member of the ex-working-stiff community! (Congratulations, Sweetie!)

Sounds like an event to celebrate, right? So how did we spend the day?

Well, he started off the morning with a chipped tooth. An omen, maybe? He's sure he'll need a crown, so he'll be spending at least part of his first couple of months of retirement seeing a lot of our dentist. Seems appropriate somehow, doesn't it?

But the tooth wasn't painful, so we went out and picked up our prescriptions at the pharmacy, did some shopping for office supplies at our local Staples, and stopped off at Starbucks for a couple of lattes. Forgot all about picking up a bottle of champagne for toasting the occasion, but he did buy himself a little gift of a bottle of Scotch, so he didn't notice the lack of bubbly.

So far, he says retirement feels great. He's not bored yet, and he hasn't been away from it all long enough to miss any of his colleagues or his usual routines. Well, I "retired" several years ago (early and unofficially, but that's another story), and can't say I've regretted it for a minute, so I think he'll be OK. He slept late this morning, which is almost unheard-of around here. And he's spending the day on one of his favorite activities - tending to financial matters!

Will we drive each other bananas, now that we'll be spending all day together, everyday? Good question. The drama has just begun to unfold. Stay tuned to this station.

Saturday Snapshot: Christmas Past

Saturday Snapshot is a meme hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books.
Please visit her blog for the guidelines.

I've been looking through some of our old Christmas photos. Probably not a good idea; I try to stay clear of needless nostalgia at this time of year. But this has always been one of my favorites. It's a shot of me with my little cousin MLB on her very first Christmas Eve back in ???? Well, many long years ago, obviously. (Up with Boomers!) She'll probably murder me if she sees this (I think I've posted it once before and got away with it), but weren't we cute? And just look at that state-of-the-art TV set in the background. Her family was probably the first on our block to have a TV, but her dad was a TV newsman so they had to have one. Looks like she's off on a little adventure, doesn't it? Well, she always had a mind of her own, even at such a tender age!

Family Foto Friday

I was doing some family history work the other day (OK, not really "work" since I love to do it), and was surprised (more like horrified) when I realized that this year I'm the same age my grandmother was when I got married! How depressing is that?

Now admittedly, we were both very young brides. But, still. I guess that means I'm getting really, really old.

This is me on my wedding day with my MaMa (pronounced Maw-Maw). I know - what a yucky thing to call one's grandma. She was my mother's mother, and I was her first grandchild. And since my father's mother already had a raft of grandkids who called her Granny, Mamma's mom was stuck with MaMa. So I suppose I might be the culprit responsible for giving her that nickname. I'd like to think she chose it for herself, but who would do that?


Anyway. In this photo she's giving me a sixpence for my shoe (for good luck). She gave me a lace handkerchief to carry too, for my "something old." I think she did that for all the brides in the family. I've still got the hankie. I wonder if that sixpence is hiding somewhere around here, too.

Saturday Snapshot: Family Gathering

Saturday Snapshot is a meme hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books.
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(Click on photo to enlarge.)

I thought this would be an appropriate shot for the season. It was taken at either Thanksgiving or Christmas in 1971 (it's dated December 1971, but I wasn't always great at getting film developed right away). Sorry about the quality, but it was converted from an old slide and had to be cleaned up quite a bit.

That dude in the middle is my husband M, with his younger brother to the left and his grandfather on the right. I'm not sure what it is he's examining with such rapt interest - looks like a pitcher or jug of some kind, and his grandmother did have a large pitcher collection, although most of them were much tinier than the one here.

What a difference forty years can make! Sadly, M's granddad is no longer with us. But he had a good run - lived to be 91 or 92, and did exactly as he pleased most of his life. M's little brother cut his long golden locks ages ago. And the house they're gathered in was torn down several years back and replaced by a giant Whataburger site. Time marches on.

Oh, and M's mustache disappeared quite a while ago, too. That's the one thing from way back then that I don't miss at all!

Blue Monday: August Blues

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(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Well, as I've said before, I'm running out of blue stuff around this place. And this may be my lamest Blue Monday post yet: the August page from my kitchen calendar. Because August is on its way outta here, and I just don't really want to believe summer is almost gone! And the calendar does have lots of blue on it – all that blue sky and water making such a nice background for those cute Kliban kitties. And even the refrigerator magnets holding it up have touches of blue.

This calendar doesn't usually hang on the front of the fridge – I had to move it to take the photos. The little Pennsylvania Dutch-style magnet hook holding the calendar belonged to my mother. I know it looks sort of green in the photos, but it's actually a nice 1970s shade of turquoise.

Also looks like it's taken quite a beating over the years.

My mother had dozens of these refrigerator magnets at one time, but when she relocated from San Antonio to Fort Worth late in life, she only took a few with her. So I suppose this one could have had some sort of sentimental meaning to her, but I don't know what that might have been. Or maybe it just got thrown into one of the packing crates at the last minute, for no particular reason. Strange, isn't it, how many silly things you suddenly realize you'd like to ask your parents after they're gone?

Oh, Happy Day!

Many long eons ago - on a planet far, far away - two young people who didn't know what they were getting themselves into stood up in front of a Presbyterian minister and a congregation of their friends and relations, and promised to love and support each other til the end of time, amen. In sickness and health and for better or worse, and all that stuff.

It was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished them well. . . . Well, one of us was a teenager anyway.

Today, M and I are celebrating another wedding anniversary. There have been many others since that day back in 1960-something when we got hitched. That day was, literally, one of the happiest days of my life. Even though the dress was too hot for August in Texas, and the florist delivered the wrong flowers, and it had rained the night before and the humidity was almost unendurable, and everyone (except M and me, but including, I think, the minister) wept all through the ceremony. I got the guy of my dreams, and I've still got him, and I love him even more now than I did then (although I wouldn't have said that was possible). The wedding may have been a near-disaster, but the marriage has been something like a miracle.

Happy anniversary, Sweetie!

Family Photo Monday

I have a huge collection of family photos, from both my family and my husband's. And I really need to get them sorted, digitized, and then put away in albums. A massive task, but it needs to be done. And I thought maybe posting some of them on my blog might be a nudge to get me started (or re-started; I've actually been working on this for a few years now).

So, for today, here's a little memorial photo. My father died on this day, July 12th, in 1957. He hadn't quite made it to his 37th birthday. This shot was taken (most likely by my mother) around that time. It's dated September 1957, but I believe it was actually taken at least a couple of years earlier (my mother was always pretty lax about getting photos developed). That's me with him. And, yes, he was very tall.


The 12th of July is always a little sad for me, even after all these years.

Shadow Shot Sunday #107: Ancestral Shadows

San Antonio National Cemetery
San Antonio, TX

Just a bit late for Memorial Day. My husband's great-great-grandfather, William Jackson Locke, who fought in the Civil War, is buried here (that's his grave in the foreground, on the right). In the background, you can see the Tower of the Americas, one of the more modern landmarks in downtown San Antonio.

(Click on image to enlarge.)

Shadow Shot Sunday is a weekly photo meme hosted by Hey Harriet. To see many, many more shadow shots or to contribute some yourself, head on over to her blog.

Happy Birthday, Mamma

1921-2001

My mother died nine years ago.
She would have been 89 years old today.

She always said (or claimed that her sister Bette said) that most people die on or near their birthdays. So she was predicting that she'd die around April 11th, the date she was born. And I think through sheer force of will, she pretty much made it. She died April 15th, 2001 – on Easter Sunday and just four days after her birthday. I miss her everyday, but especially on those three days every spring.

Random Photo Monday: New Stars

It's been a while since I posted a Random Photo Monday shot – Monday is not my snappiest day of the week. And I know everyone is probably tired beyond belief of seeing Christmas decorations everywhere, but I really had to show these off. The red and green wooden stars here were Christmas gifts from my littlest cousins in Texas. And I mean really little – ages not-quite-three-years and a-little-over-one-year. Their mom sent along photos of the kiddoes decorating these ornaments, and they are super cute. I have a small collection of star ornaments (like the gold wire star here), and these fit right in. Our tiny tree was too small to hang them on it, but they looked really pretty on the china cabinet, don't you think? (Click on photo to enlarge.)

Random Photo Monday: Mom-In-Law's Birthday

Today is my mother-in-law's 85th birthday. We weren't able to make the trek to Texas this year, to celebrate with her, but we did manage to get down there last year for her 84th. The second photo here was taken then. In the first shot she was about five years old, so it dates from around 1929-30. Quite a cutie, wasn't she?

I'm very fortunate in that she and I have always gotten along really well - I know that's not always the case with mothers and their daughters-in-law. She made me feel like a member of the family right from the start, and over the years she's always treated me more like a daughter than an "in-law." Of course, both of us have always thought the guy I married is pretty great - so we had that in common from the beginning.

Random Photo Monday: Greetings from Methuselah

Friday was my birthday. Never mind how old (old enough to know better, as my mother used to say). And this year I only got one birthday card – from my cousin MLB (thanks, Cuzzie!). We grew up together, and I can always depend on her for a card that cheers me up and brings me a few chuckles. Aside from that, the only birthday greeting I got was an email ad from Borders! Sad, but true – it's come to that. Well, my hubby did tell me "Happy Birthday" when he woke me up Friday morning, and he let me sleep late which was sweet. But there was no cute and mushy birthday card waiting at breakfast, and no nicely wrapped package containing chocolates or diamonds this year. Bummer.

But the thing that really made me sad was that there was no card from M's mom. Usually, I can expect my mother-in-law to remember even if no one else does. But she's been having a lot of health problems this year, and she's still recovering from a fall she suffered last November that left her with some pretty serious head injuries. So she's doing really well to remember her own birthday – can't expect her to be sending out birthday cards right now. And since my mother and grandmothers are gone now, I've come to realize (with something of a jolt), that I've suddenly become one of the matriarchs in both my family and M's. The ones who remember birthdays and keep track of all the family history. How did that happen?

So, anyway, in honor of my own appearance on the scene, I'm putting up a shot of moi at my very first birthday party back in the foggy mists of time. Yes, I know it's self-centered and egotistical. But those are privileges that come with advanced age. And I know the photo is pretty blurry (well, I said it was the foggy mists of time, didn't I?) – but it's the best one of the bunch from that day. My mother was the photographer and she was never very handy with a camera. Generally, people in her photos ended up with no heads or only half a body, so this is one of the really successful shots!

Random Photo Monday: Many Happy Returns

Actually more than one photo today, and not entirely random.

Several centuries ago, on a planet far, far away . . . there was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished them well. Oops! Sorry, but I always slip into Chuck Berry mode when I think about our wedding; because while M was twenty and very nearly a grownup, I was still just nineteen and nowhere near as sophisticated as I pretended to be.

And that part about the "old folks" wishing us well – I'm sure they did. But it was hard to tell because most of them simply sobbed through the entire ceremony. We had one of the weepiest weddings in history – mostly, I think, because we were so young and looked even younger. Even my maid of honor – who was also my aunt – wept. I'm told even my father-in-law brushed away a tear or two. But M and I were happy – we were having a lot more fun than we'd thought we would.

The bridesmaids' dresses looked much better in real life than they do in the photos. But that peau de soie must have been unbearably hot in the Texas summer. Sorry, girls.

We almost didn't have a wedding at all – not a real wedding ceremony with the white dress, the cake, and the reception in the church hall. When we decided to get married before moving to Austin for our junior year of college, we assumed we'd just go down to the courthouse in San Antonio and sign the papers and that would be it. Well, it was the '60s and we were on our way to being hippies and were really trying to avoid all that middle-class bourgeois establishment tradition. But when our mothers heard "no wedding," they were so obviously devastated, that we had to relent. I guess even radical "freaks" (as we thought of ourselves back then) want their moms to be happy.

So, getting back to the point. One very hot and rainy day in late August, back in – well, about 256 years ago, if my calculations are correct – M and I got hitched, in a small but lovely Presbyterian church in San Antonio, Texas. I had my auntie and my little cousins as my attendants, and M had his three best pals backing him up (they'd taken him out the night before and gotten him completely blotto, but he still made it to the church on time). We survived the heat and the rain showers, and the fiasco of the wrong flowers being delivered. And M didn't smack me or even get mad when I kidded him after he stumbled over his vows – although we'll always remember that my first words to him as his wedded wife were "You blew it!"

It's not really polite to threaten your Best Man
with physical violence in the receiving line, Dear!

And I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was what he was feeling about the whole venture right about then. But after all these eons together, I think we've both long ago come to realize that we really didn't blow it – we made exactly the right decision. Even though one of us was still just a teenie-bopper.

So, as Chuck Berry also sagely said, "C'est la vie, said the old folks / It goes to show, you never can tell!"
I know it doesn't look like it, but he really had kissed me once or twice before the ceremony!

Random Photo Monday: Grandpa Horn

Well, it's a little late, but I thought in honor of his birthday, I'd put up a photo of my husband's maternal grandfather, Milton Lee Horn. He was born August 9th, 1898, in San Antonio, Texas.

And yes, I said grandfather. In spite of the fancy duds, he was definitely male. Probably around two years old in this photo, he really doesn't look too happy about the ruffles and lace, does he?

Grandpa Horn was a descendant of one of the Alsatian families who came to Texas from Alsace-Lorraine in the mid-19th Century and settled in the Bexar County area. Arriving soon after Texas became part of the U.S., at one time his clan owned a goodly chunk of what is now the "near" Northside of San Antonio. But with uncanny business acumen, they'd managed to give away most of that property by the time Grandpa died in 1989. Which means it's probably just as well that my hubby became an English teacher, and didn't give real estate a whirl. That kind of financial know-how just has to be genetic!

Random Photo Monday: Henry and Lizzie

When my husband's grandmother died, she left a wonderful collection of photos behind. And as I was the only one in the family who had any interest in genealogy or family history research, I inherited most of them. And this morning when I was looking around for some photo that would be appropriate for the month of July, this one caught my eye.

This is a snapshot of M's great-grandparents, Henry and Elizabeth Horn (or "Ma & Pa Horn" as it says on the back of the photo). He was born July 6, 1866 in San Antonio, Texas. And she died on July 23, 1960, at the age of 95, also in San Antonio. The picture was probably taken around 1920, in front of their house on their farm land near the corner of San Pedro and what became Basse Road. If you know anything about San Antonio, you'll realize just how much that area has changed in almost a hundred years.

Henry Felician Horn was a member of one of the Alsatian families who settled in Bexar County around the time Texas became a part of the US. His mother and father were both born in France, and came to Texas by way of New Orleans in about 1856. Elizabeth Locke Horn (yes, "lock-horn" – you heard right) was an interesting character – I'm determined to write a book about her someday. Called "Lizzie" or "Hattie" by the family, she was the daughter of Texas pioneers from Tennessee and Illinois who came to San Antonio in one of the wagon trains of settlers sometime in the mid-19th century. She and Henry had six children, and my husband's grandfather was the next to the youngest. And although she's looking fairly serious here, in all the other photos I have of Lizzie Locke (that's how I think of her), she's always got a nice smile on her face – always looks like she was having such a wonderful time!

Random Photo Monday: A Salute To Our Fathers

Well, these photos are really not exactly random. For my first Random Photo Monday post in quite a while, I'm putting up a couple of family shots. Both taken during World War II – my father in his Navy whites (with the sun in his eyes, darn it!), and M's stepdad in his Army uniform. Handsome dudes, weren't they?

The strange thing is that both were born in the month of October, and both died in the month of July – my father on July 12th and M's on July 4th (holidays tend to be rather traumatic in both our families).

[Cross-posted at Children of the Lone Star.]