"Lucy Wait and her two children Dorothy and Buddy"

In trying to decide which picture to use for Throwback Thursday this week, I found this picture in my grandmother's photo album.

On the back of the picture she wrote this:

I love the fact that they are sitting on an oil drum! I'm not sure where this was taken, probably in Brattleboro, VT as my father was born there.  My family always called my Dad Bud.  I guess it started early on!

I remember when I was young, in my grandmother's bedroom closet, there were a few photo albums. They were the kind with a leatherette cover and black construction paper pages.  The pictures were attached with black photo corners.  One of them was my grandmother's pictures; pictures of when she was young in Chateaugay, NY, near the Canadian border. There were also pictures of my grandfather, Donald Wait, probably when they started dating.

There was a smaller photo album with pictures of my Aunt Dot when she was young with her church friends and work friends.

There was also a larger album, same type, which was more of a family album.

I loved looking through those albums.  I remember my cousin and I looking through them and laughing at the styles of the clothes.

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts some time, maybe in the '80's, Dot took all of the pictures out of those albums (sigh...) and put them in magnetic albums and cut the pictures down to show just the main part of the picture.

I remember going through my grandmother's album, maybe at that time - I don't remember, and asking her who was who. Unfortunately, I didn't write anything down, and I have forgotten who a lot of the people are.

How I wish I had been more interested in old pictures when my grandmother was still here and young enough to remember who the pictures were of.

Throwback Thursday - Saturday night dinner with friends

Another table picture! This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it.  The year was 1972, probably in June.  I would have been 7 months pregnant with Kristen.

We were having dinner with our good friends, Danny and Joanie at our (second) apartment in Belden Ct in Agawam.  I would love to know what we had for dinner.  I see hot dog rolls, so probably hot dogs and beans, or maybe macaroni and cheese.  That is the bowl I used for macaroni (Kraft out of the box).  I was pretty good at that by that time (we would have been married for almost 2 years), ha ha!

The funny thing, though, was the fact that Joanie and I were in CURLERS!  I know it was Saturday night and the curlers were for church the next day.

I can't imagine going to friends' house in curlers now.  I can't even imagine using curlers now.

Times sure have changed!

March 2016 Scrapbook Pages

These are some older ones; playing catch up.

Throwback Thursday - Me and Ettie

The year on this picture from my Aunt Dot's photo album is 1953.  That means I was 3, and my aunt Esther (Ettie) was 23.  We were supposed to be posing with the "helicopters" from the maple tree on our noses.  Obviously I couldn't resist sneaking a peak at the photographer, most likely my Aunt Dot.  I'm so thankful for these old pictures!

Throwback Thursday - Me at 11 months

I found this picture in one of my Aunt Dot's photo albums.  I remember, as a kid, going through family photo albums.  There were several of them.  One of them was a large, maroon book with black card stock pages.  The photos were attached by corner stickers that the corner of the picture fit into.  I loved that book.  Some time later, my aunt took that photo album apart and cut a lot of the pictures into smaller pictures, with only the people showing, eliminating the backgrounds.  It must have been the thing to do then because Paul remembers his mother doing the same thing to her photo albums.

I take a lot of close-up pictures, but I also like to get the background in pictures too.  It gives the pictures context, and it's nice to remember things and places as they were.

I think this picture was taken in Greenfield, MA, where my grandfather was from and where some of his family still lived when I was young.  I have seen that wall in Greenfield before, I'm sure.

My next quest is to find that wall, and try to figure out where we were in this picture.  So, you see my point about not having all close-up pictures.  If this picture was cropped, I would never know where it was taken. It's not that important, really, but I like knowing the details of pictures.


***Update.  Paul and I went to Greenfield to try to find where the above picture was taken.  I had a feeling that I knew because I know where this wall is.  The area is a little different now.  We talked to the guy who owns an antique shop next door which, by the way, used to be an Assemblies of God church that I had been to as a kid.  He said that next door to him used to be all grass with a little shack business in the back.  Now that business has a big dirt/paved front and just a little grass.  There are also hedges out near the street.  It's the same place though.

Paul took a picture.  It's a silly picture, I know, but it does show the wall.

This is an old picture of the church next door.  Rev. Ralph Jelley used to pastor it.  He and his wife were friends of my family.  It was 1964 and we were there for someone's wedding.  It is my grandmother, my cousin Lynda, my Aunt Ettie, and my Dad.

This is what the church looks like today.  It is an antique shop.

Everything changes.  Sigh.....