Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to
share family history through old photographs.
This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt pays tribute to ties
and suspenders. If my ancestors wore
suspenders, they didn't put them on display.
But there were ties a-plenty in the photos passed down to me.
My grandparents
Fred and Julia Slade
In the early 1950s, my dad was a bow tie
kinda guy, much like his dad.
Christmas 1952
In the 1920s, my great aunts’ beaus sported bows. Bow ties, that is.
In Velma's scrapbook, this is
captioned "CM and Teddy."
"Teddy" was Violetta's nickname.
But I don't know who CM was.
Woody Woodring sometimes
wore a bow tie.
Velma liked it so much, Woody wore a bow tie
at their wedding in 1927.
Friend of Velma's
at Harrisonburg Teachers College
Handsome gentleman callers weren’t the only ones sporting
ties. Ties were a common accessory among
college girls too, if my great aunt’s scrapbook can be trusted.
Velma Davis 1924
Friend of Violetta Davis
Virginia Cole, Velma's friend
Please visit my friends at Sepia Saturday, if you’re not
already TIEd up.
Wordless Wednesday is a daily
prompt at Geneabloggers that asks family historians to create a post in which
the main focus is a photograph or image.
What’s up with all the greenery on the hood of the car? Everyone seems too jolly to have just plowed
through a tree, so the make-shift camouflage must be intentional.
Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to
share family history through old photographs.
This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt features a
threesome. As if I can’t get enough of blogging about theDeep Creek locksand the Dismal Swamp Canal, I can’t resist posting one more
picture from my great aunt Helen Killeen Parker’s photo album. It’s a threesome, all right, three of Helen’s
friends who were on the boat ride that I wrote about previously.
They are pictured here waiting to board the canal boat.
Even though those knickers are quite eye-catching and
that plaid skirt positively jaw-dropping, my attention goes to the ground. Litter.
Shame. Shame. Triple Shame.
It would be another 30 years before the Keep America Beautiful
campaign challenged us to “beautify America” by reminding us that “Every litter
bit hurts.”
Please visit Sepia Saturday to see what threesomes others
have to offer.
Wordless Wednesday is a daily
prompt at Geneabloggers that asks family historians to create a post in which
the main focus is a photograph or image.
This photo of my great-aunt Helen Killeen Parker was
taken probably between 1919 and 1921. Notice
the gramophone which must have provided some fun background music for a camping
trip. In my day, it would have been a
transistor radio. My daughters when in
high school would have relied on their “boom box.” Today, a simple iPod that fits in a pocket can
hold 1000s of songs, more than anyone could listen to on a weekend camping
trip.
Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to
share family history through old photographs.
This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is a group of women in
hats enjoying a picnic. Dining in the
great outdoors was a long-standing tradition among the Jolletts when they all
gathered in Harriston, Virginia for the annual reunion.
I don’t know when the reunions began or exactly when they
stopped, but photos of the event are dated as early as 1919.
Standing: Decatur and Vic Breeden, Jack and Emma Coleman,
Sallie Clift, Laura Sullivan, James Franklin Jollett,
Mary Frances Davis, Leanna Knight, Walter Davis
Seated: Will Sullivan, Ulysses and Sadie Jollett
Besides catching up on the latest news, the Jollett
family seemed to have adopted 3 traditions:
EAT – look at that spread! Blue mason jars filled with peaches, applesauce,
pickles. Freshly baked cakes and pies
and rolls. I wonder what else.
Left: Arthur Maiden offers the prayer.
James Franklin Jollett and Emma Coleman
PRAY – Who was the heathen snapping photos during the
prayer?
The bearded man is James Franklin Jollett,
my 2G-grandfather. Next to him is my
great grandmother Mary Frances Davis
and then my grandmother Lucille Rucker Davis
LOVE – The reunion was a time to get that 4-generation
photo.
4 Generations 1923:
Emma Coleman, James Franklin Jollett, Virginia Maiden
Standing: Minnie Coleman Maiden
4 Generations 1925:
My grandfather Orvin Davis
Mary Frances Davis holding Orvin Jr,
James Franklin Jollett
4 Generations 1926:
Mary Frances Davis, James Franklin Jollett,
Orvin Davis and Orvin Jr.
I remember seeing a picture of my mother as a baby sitting
on her great-grandfather’s lap at the reunion of 1929. Unfortunately that picture has gone missing,
and I really hate that.
Wordless Wednesday is a daily
prompt at Geneabloggers that asks family historians to create a post in which
the main focus is a photograph or image.
This photo was in a box of pictures that had belonged
to my great grandmother Mary Theresa Sheehan Killeen Walsh. Unlike most of the photos that I inherited
from my dad’s family, this one bears a date on the back signaling that it was
likely sent to Mary Theresa, maybe from one of her sisters in New York or some
other relative. (The row houses in the
background actually look more Southern than New Yorkish.)
The occasion: a
First Holy Communion, May 15, 1938.
Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to
share family history through old photographs.
This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt features amazing
contraptions. Last week when I prepared
my Sepia Saturday post, I noticed the contraption in this photo:
What is this contraption? It has a gear, a crank, a hose? maybe a gate??
In the same batch of photos, apparently taken the same
day sometime between 1919 and 1921, is this one that appears to be either the same contraption from a
different angle or a similar one perhaps at the opposite end of the ramp.
What function this contraption performs is a mystery to me,
but an alert fellow-Sepian last week asked if it controls the locks on a canal. If so, then my guess is this group of friends
cruised through the Deep Creek Locks into the Dismal Swamp, which forms part of
the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.
Hoping to confirm this theory, I went in search of
historic photos of the Deep Creek Locks.
While I found nothing with which to compare this contraption, I did find lots of photos of canal boats, also
known as narrowboats, which look similar to the one my great aunt Helen Killeen
Parker and her friends rode on.
Notice the flat top common among
canal boats and narrowboats.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
Image from Wikimedia Commons
Plus, I found this YouTube video of a modern-day boater
at the Deep Creek Locks.
Another YouTube video offers a good view of the gear and crank of a canal lock, albeit smaller than the one in Helen's photo, enough to convince me that's what the contraption was. It's a long video, but the opening minute or two will make it clear.
Have we solved the mystery of this whatchamacallit? Maybe.
Surely the boat is a canal boat.
Virginia does not boast many canals, and Helen didn’t venture far from
home if her photos can be trusted. Between
1913 and 1929, the Dismal Swamp had fallen out of favor as a route for
commercial traffic leaving it safe and relatively empty for pleasure boaters
such as Helen and her friends.
Apparently canal boats are still common in many parts of
Europe, so I shouldn’t be surprised that my fellow-Sepian recognized the
working mechanism of a canal lock.
For more whatchamacallits, do-hickeys, thingamabobs, and
amazing contraptions, please visit Sepia Saturday.
Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to
share family history through old photographs.
This week’s Sepia Saturday image features tall ships, a
lighthouse, a windmill, and people strolling along the harbor of
Littlehampton. Although my photos
contain few of those images, I do have some of people waiting along the water.
My great aunt Helen Killeen Parker seems to have been a popular
gal in the late 19-teens and early twenties in Portsmouth, Virginia, always on
some sort of outing. What this occasion
was and when are unknown to me.
It
resembles a fishing boat, but Helen and her friends don’t appear to be doing
any fishing.
It’s interesting that they were sitting on top of the
boat.
The channel appears narrow, so I wonder if they were
boating through the Dismal Swamp.
Since I have no answers, I will have to wonder what this
funny little boat was and where it went.
Cruise on over to Sepia Saturdayfor more tales of boats,
lighthouses, and windmills.
