a day with the olde family photos

My uncle, nailing his siblings (quite efficiently) with the hose.


Old family photos. Been scanning boxes of them this afternoon. Sometimes there are special little mistakes or objects ~ a feather, an old camera, the shadow of the photographer. I look and marvel and inspect, trying to recognize myself in those people.

An unknown relative, yet one of my favorite photos. Ocean city, new jersey. A classic shot.

PopPop holding, I think, my mother. It's so hard to tell at that age, especially when they're bald.

And to the right, my mother for sure, saucy yet stylish at 15 months.

Someone, I'm not sure who, peeking and taking a photo of my great-grandmother Lillian, who is feeding birds from her hand.

The ubiquitous 'farm dog on a chair' snapshot. There were more than one of these, and in fact most of the photos with my grandmom or her mom have at least one dog in them. If you look closely, this dog is wearing some kind of bow tie.

Grandmom Elly with her pet chicken, of course.

One of the farm horses. This photo is why digital will never be better than real film. (I say boldly.)


Look at that snowy field. It looks just like mashed potatoes.

PopPop (to the right) sawing wood when he was a mailman in alaska during WWII. Oh, the icicles on that tent, and he without gloves.

PopPop apparently allowed bears to get foolishly close to him while serving in alaska.

I go crazy for pictures like the one on the left. The poetic trees almost transparent in the sunshine, the crisp arctic shadows, the cool taste of the well water in his cup, the classic white tee, the wooden planks.


That's my PopPop while he was a single man in alaska, wooing my grandmom long-distance with letters. To the right is him playing horsey later with my mom (the letters worked, smart man.)

On his wedding day, with a friend and their cameras! He's taking a photo of my grandmom, his new bride. She wore yellow. A wartime wedding in the country.

And later on, my cheeky uncle (or again, it might be my mother...it's so hard to tell at that age...) in a wonderful old stroller, in front of the Nicholson Bridge, iconic to my family.


And grandmom Elly with her son, my uncle, strong little lad. She sewed her own shorts and halter tops.

Elly. I love finding photos of her I haven't seen. She's been gone almost a year.


A big box full of photos of animals, places, shrubbery, gardens, fields, homes that no longer exist, people without any names. But at the time it was all as fresh as things are now. Life is funny.

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