Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesdays

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: A Favorite Photo of My Mother

Because Mother's Day is tomorrow, it wasn't much of a surprise to see what Randy Seaver had in mind for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:

1)  This is Mother's Day weekend, so please go through the photographs you have of your mother and share one of your favorite photographs of her.  Just one.  Oh, tell us why it's one of your favorites, and tell us something about your mother, too.

2)  Share your photograph and story in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or on social media (e.g., Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, etc.).

The problem with repeating this type of request is that if you've participated in the past, you've already shared your favorite photo!  And that's what I did last year.  So this year's photo will have to settle for being my second favorite.

This is a photograph of my parents on their wedding day, October 21, 1961.  The wedding was in Miami, and several of my mother's relatives attended.  My father's mother was there, and maybe an aunt, and that was it for his side of the family.  Very soon after the wedding my parents piled their belongings into a car and drove across the country to Whittier, California, where one of my maternal grandmother's best friends lived.  My mother always complained that it had taken them three entire days to drive across Texas.

Wordless Wednesday

Wedding Wednesday

Lynn and Myra

Fifty-four years ago today, my parents were married in Miami, Florida.  The timing was rather interesting:  It was a mere five days after my father's divorce from his first wife, the mother of my half-sister.

This past Saturday I wrote about the little I know of how my parents met.  Although I don't know exactly when my mother and cousin were going to that party, I know it had to have been by late June or early July of 1961 at the latest, because I came bouncing along the next year on April 9, and I was actually overdue by a week (yes, I was supposed to have been born on April Fool's Day).

Something else I learned after my mother had passed away is that my mother's father never knew my father had been married previously.  When my grandmother told me that, I stared at her in disbelief.  There's no question when you look at us that my half-sister, my sister, and I are closely related.  We very strongly resemble each other.  But the story my grandfather was told was that my half-sister was a cousin.  I thought, How could he not have known?  Then I realized the story must have been true, because if he had known, everyone would have heard him comment on it.  That little secret apparently was kept until the day he died, 28 years later.

I am very fortunate in that I have several photographs from the wedding.  It's a shame most of them are so dark, because you can barely see some of the people.  I recognize many of the faces in the photos but not everyone.  Attending on my mother's side were her parents and brothers, her father's brother (and wife Irene?), and her mother's brother and sister-in-law.  So far I don't know the name of the maid of honor.  On my father's side, his mother and maybe her sister were there.  And that's everyone I know!  There's a young girl at the table, and I have no idea who she is.  I'm definitely going to be sharing this post with several family members, asking them to help me ID the other people.  I suspect most of them are relatives, but who knows?  And maybe my father can tell me whose apartment and what restaurant they're in . . . .

Myra

Marty and maid of honor

Myra and Lynn

Myra, Lynn, Anna

Left:  maid of honor, Marty, Myra, Lynn, Anna, ?
Right:  Harry, Irene?, Gary, Lily, Abe, Al, Rose

Myra, Lynn, Anna, Anna's sister?, ?, ?

Al, Abe, Lily

Left:  ?, Rose, Al, Abe, Lily, Gary, Irene?, Harry
Right:  ?

Left:  Rose, Lily, a waiter
Right:  Myra's little headpiece is visible in the back

?, Al, ? (but definitely the focus of the photo)

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Did Your Parents Meet?

Maybe Randy Seaver can read minds, because I was thinking about this very question recently.  In this week's installment of Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy asked readers to post about how their parents met:

1) Do you know how, when, and where your parents met?  

2)  Please tell the family story in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in your own Facebook or Google+ post.

NOTE:  You can substitute your own story about meeting your spouse, or the story about your grandparents, etc.

I did not find out how my parents met until several years after my mother had passed away.  My grandmother was in California for a visit, and we were driving to meet up with other family members.  I don't remember if I asked her or if she just started talking about it, but she told me that while the family was living in Miami, my mother and her best friend were going out to a party, and the car broke down.  My mother was worried about how they would get to the party, but her friend said, "Don't worry, my uncle is a mechanic!"  Since this was well before the age of cell phones, I don't know how they contacted him (maybe there was a pay phone nearby?), but that mechanic was my father.  In October 1961 my parents were married.

I still have a lot of details to fill in.  I don't know how long before they married that the "great car breakdown" occurred.  I know my mother's family moved to Miami sometime between 1949 and 1951.  My father and his mother were living in Sanford (near Orlando) until at least about 1953ish, when he graduated high school, but he was living in Miami before December 11, 1956, because that's when and where he married his first wife (they knew each other through roller skating).  But then they moved back to New Jersey (where they were both from originally and where my half-sister was born) for a while, and I don't know when he/they returned to Miami.  (Whoops!  I just realized that makes two more moves for my father that I did not count in his migration total from last week.  Gotta add another 2,400 miles!)  I don't even know when my mother's best friend, my father's niece, moved to Miami.  There is always more to learn!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

My Father through the Years

Heavily weighted toward more recent years, but I was able to find photos with all three wives!  Happy Father's Day!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday