-
Something makes me think this is my Great Uncle Sam (yes, I had an Uncle Sam and 2 Aunt Bee’s!) But, as with many of these photographs, I don’t know if there’s anyone alive who could confirm the identification. He just looks kind of rascally like Uncle Sam. I don’t even know if Uncle Sam was ever in the Navy.
-
Ah, the old International Scout looks brand new there. I wonder where it is now?
-
And here is a haunting portrait of “Annie” someone. I don’t know if there is anyone alive who could identify her. She looks a bit like my grandmother Deron, so maybe the name is a mislabel.
-
It wouldn’t do to have this blog with only black and white (or sepia and white) photos of dead people, so here’s a color one with three living people. That’s my dad pulling the sled. The Adonis on the front of the sled is me at about 3 1/2 and the other kid is my big brother. A couple years later we moved down the block where there was a real hill to sled on.
-
My Grandmother Deron is the toddler and I think that’s my Great Aunt Bennie on the left. This is probably somewhere in Louisiana, where the Waldrums hailed from.
-
This photo was taken in Lake City, Colorado, I’d guess around 1950. The woman to the right of the steps is my Grandmother Deron (who we called Ginn), a two-fisted drinking smoking mountain woman. Sitting next to her is my grandfather, a mining engineer who died before I was born. The woman to the left of the stairs is my mom, in about her mid-teens. I see my Great Aunt Bennie (arms crossed) and my Great Aunt Bee (holding hands with the child) and my Great Aunt Balmer (top right) and I think that’s Uncle Henry kind of disappearing into the dark of the house at the top middle. I don’t know who the other people are, exactly, though the kids are probably my mom’s cousins.
-
-
My mother died nine years ago in July. I recently cleared her room out and got to looking at some of the old pictures from her side of the family. They were sufficiently intriguing for me to start a new tumblr to exhibit the best of them. I chose a title for the blog from this first image, a postcard of the children (or daughter and son-in-law—I’m not exactly sure since I don’t know anything about them) of D.S Hoffman, General Physician of Lake City, Colorado at the turn of the century.
“Dear Papa, This is the way the country children look when in Denver. Not very flattering is it. We are having a good time, even if we do look kind o’ queer. Love to Henry and a kiss for Papa. Lovingly, Marian.”
I think “Henry” is my great uncle Henry who lived to be 100 (and whom I met!).
