Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.
This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is a popular carnival ride: the swings. It happens to be my favorite because for this Big Chicken it offers the maximum stomach-dropping thrill. No roller coaster for me, thank-you.
And no roller coaster or swinging carousel for my great-aunt Velma Davis Woodring and her friends either. They found a different thrill, a different way to test gravity. Velma’s college scrapbook does not elaborate on the summer of 1924 when she and her chums climbed onto some structure, perhaps a bridge, and posed for pictures.
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| High up? Bill Porter Unknown and Velma Davis |
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| Up in the air? Bill Porter Virginia Cole |
The captions with question marks make me wonder if Velma was teasing. Were they really high up? Or was there some trick photography designed to fool the eye? Maybe they were not as high in the sky as it appears. It looks pretty dangerous though.
Swing on over to Sepia Saturday for more high flying adventures.
©2014, Wendy
Mathias. All rights reserved.
Daring young ladies: climbing high & wearing pants! wow
ReplyDeleteHA -- so true!
DeleteLooks scary enough to me!
ReplyDeleteI've never been on a roller coaster. Just the thought of them makes me feel like passing out. :)
They look so relaxed that I somehow doubt they're up very high.
DeleteIt makes me think that they are going to fall, but they don't look very concerned! Great find, Miss Wendy.
ReplyDeleteKathy M.
No they don't. The girl on top is especially calm and collected.
DeleteI've heard of daring you men on a flying trapeze, but girls on a girder I didn't expect.
ReplyDeleteWhew -- need to get my glasses checked -- I first read that as girls on a girdle.
DeleteYou must be dyslexic like me. So did I...
DeleteI don't go on rides, and I get scared just walking near the side of a bridge.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a rides person -- just those phony rides at Disney like the Haunted Mansion and It's a Small World. I even gave up the tea-cups - really, I know we're not going to crash but oh golly it feels like it.
DeleteThey are amazing! great photo!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteJudging by the height of the trees and bushes in the landscape below they aren’t too high up. However, if it’s a bridge I assume it was over a river - let’s hope it wasn’t a raging torrent!
ReplyDeleteMaybe not a full-fledged river -- maybe a stream. Let's hope.
DeleteI'm scared of heights, so that looks high up enough for me! Great photos!
ReplyDeleteYep, high enough for me too.
DeleteDo you think the girls were wearing school uniforms? Their clothes look similiar, especially the girls standing in the picture on the left. Don't like heights and can't imagine standing up there if they were on a bridge.
ReplyDeleteI don't think so, but I agree the jackets look similar. Some similar photos of other girls in the yearbook make me think these pictures could have been taken at the YWCA Camp.
DeleteSo which one is Bill. They all look like girls to me.
ReplyDeleteNancy
Bill is the girl on top of the girder. Yeah -- Bill. She is identified in Velma's scrapbook as Bill, which I thought was some kind of joke. However, there she is in the yearbook -- Bill Porter.
DeleteLooking at the power lines in the background, they can't be as high as it appears. Look at how casual and at ease that Bill is! Great pictures that show a fun loving and cheeky streak.
ReplyDeleteGood eye! I hadn't even noticed the power lines.
DeleteHave knickerbockers, will climb? I like the right hand photo posed holding the girder up, so funny.
ReplyDeleteYeah, she must've been a strong girl. HA!
DeleteLovely pictures of girls perhaps standing 3 feet above ground, except for the foolhardy Bill!!
ReplyDelete:D~
HUGZ