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)

A Favorite Photo for Mother's Day

Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun this weekend was to post your favorite photo of your mother:

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

It wasn't very difficult for me to choose my favorite, because I'm a sucker for multigeneration photographs.

The photo is not dated.  I don't know what the occasion was for the photograph, and the three people in the photo have all passed away, so I'll probably never learn.  I can make an educated guess that it was taken in Miami, because that's where my grandparents lived, and my great-grandmother moved there after my great-grandfather died, which was May 2, 1955.  I suspect my grandfather took the photo; he took most of the photos in the family.

My mother, Myra Roslyn Meckler, is on the left.  To me she looks to be about 20 years old, which would mean it was taken around 1960, the year before she married my father.  In the middle is my grandmother, Lillyan (Gordon) Meckler, and on the right is my great-grandmother, Sarah (Brainin) Gordon.

This is a great photo for Mother's Day, because I can honor three generations of mothers on that side of my family.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday