Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.
This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt features tables lined with hungry guests. What was this - an optometrist convention? As one who needs glasses just to cut up my meat, I can’t help noticing all the eyewear.
These eyeglasses are hardly an “heirloom,” but they are one of my favorite things I inherited from my grandparents Orvin and Lucille Davis. Supposedly they were my granddaddy’s glasses from his childhood. The size would suggest that is true, but I have no photos to prove he ever wore them. I wonder if whoever said they belonged to “Granddaddy” actually meant Walter Davis, my mother’s “granddaddy.”
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| Walter Davis Do these look like the same glasses? |
Let’s see who else wore glasses:
1910s
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| Nancy Frances Shiflett Morris sister of my 2X great-grandmother |
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| Captioned "Uncle Billy Long" but he wasn't related He was uncle of a good friend of my Davis family |
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| Unknown - I guess a Davis family friend |
1920s
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| Leota Sullivan Racy |
Leota Sullivan was my granddaddy’s cousin. It is easy to see how her glasses always help to identify her in old photos.
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| Top row: My grandaunt Violetta Davis, there's Leota again, and friend Florine Fisher Bottom row: Pauline Bennett and my grandaunt Velma Davis |
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| High School chum of my in-laws |
1930s
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| Great-grandmother Mary Frances Jollet Davis |
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| Grandaunt Lillie Killeen |
Let's jump ahead a few decades.
1960s
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| Oooh high school hunk! |
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| Sister-in-law in her cat-eyes! |
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| Even the older chicks wore the cat-eyes Catherine Reilly, Lillie Killeen, Helen Killeen Parker |
1970s
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| Big wire-rims |
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| Some of my students 1981 |
2000s
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| Aunt Betty and Me 2009 |
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| Check out the bling on Mary Jollette's glasses! |
2010s
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| 2013 Moi and Mary Jollette |
2020s
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| The Grandbaboo wanted to do a Selfie |
Grab a seat at the Sepia Saturday table to see who all made a spectacle of themselves.
Wendy
© 2021, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.
Fun post, Wendy! I can't see a thing w/o glasses. Have a wonderful Easter weekend.
ReplyDeleteLove all those eyeglasses through the years, both ancestral and your own! Happy and healthy Easter.
ReplyDeleteFun post! I also have a pair of antique magnifying glasses from my grandmother, treasured like yours. I love Leota's glasses -- and the cat-eye glasses, which my grandmother wore in her senior years.
ReplyDeleteI say "glasses" but my English wife says "specs", i.e. spectacles. Many years ago her father, Isador, was honored by a charity he supported which commissioned a noted sculptor to make a portrait bust of him in bronze. We have one of the copies which is life size. The artist captured Isador's likeness very accurately except that he left out the spectacles that Isador always wore. We happened to have one of his old pair of specs and when we tried them on the bust, they fit perfectly! And so did one of his favorite hats. Now Isador's bust is proudly displayed in our house complete with his hat and specs!
ReplyDeleteGood observation about all the people wearing glasses in the prompt photo - I didn't think of that! even though I can't see anything without glasses either...
ReplyDeleteThat's a whole bunch'a glasses! We used to ask people to remove their glasses for pictures because they reflected the camera flash lighting. But today most folks have non-reflective glasses so it no longer matters which is good because if a person normally wears glasses, that's the way they are seen and recognized by others. I laughed at Mike & his wife adding her father's favorite hat & glasses to his bust. Too funny! :)
ReplyDeleteLove your take on the theme - very original. I was taken with Grandaunt Lillie's fur coat. Amazing. Do you know what fur it was?
ReplyDeleteSuch beautiful photos and you were very clever to come up with spectacles, glasses, as a theme. I started in my forties wearing reading glasses, which hung round my neck for years...then finally got real glasses, most of which aren't meant to be stylish.
ReplyDeleteI continue to be in awe of your bounty of photographs! And what a fun tour of eyeglass styles through the decades.
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