A Jen Too Many

It is currently snowing. We are told we can expect as much as another foot. My sweetheart gets to stay home from work tomorrow. The girls and I played Set this evening. Oldest Girl Child is incredibly good at it. I barely won the first round, which is pretty amazing when you consider that her age is measured in the single digits still and I am ... well ... old, OK?

Somebody stopped by yesterday and offered to finish shoveling our driveway for $25. I couldn't say, "Yes," fast enough and was tempted to throw myself at his feet in gratitude. The Boy Child, who would normally be earning the shoveling cash, has cleverly vanished from home for the last week and we have not heard from him. I am sure he will reappear once the snowstorms are safely out of the way and the driveway is cleared for good (or until next winter.)

No more school for the rest of the week. Youngest Girl Child got her snow week homework out of the way already, but she only had a couple of things to do. OGC has a whole package of papers and is starting to get snarly about the whole process of being required to do a small amount every day.

I thought about going to the store today to pick up a few things we are low on, but my sweetheart went out to pick himself up some soda and came home with the report that the roads are still very slick. So I decided we were fine for the rest of the week with what we have. Besides, judging from the photos I got in my email this afternoon, there is no point to going to the store right now - I have more in my pantry than they do on their shelves. (Note: These are not my photos. They are just a couple of the ones I was sent.)

Pictures of our recent snowstorm. We got about 2 1/2 feet, which is nothing to those of you in Idaho, Utah and other parts west, but is a huge amount here. They shut down school Friday in anticipation of the snow, canceled church today, and have canceled school for the first part of this next week and we may yet wind up having school canceled for the entire week. My sweetheart was told when he left work Thursday not to come in Friday, and has heard that his workplace is closed Monday, too.

It's been a very relaxing weekend for us. Except for the whole snow shoveling thing, that is. On the bright side, I'm sure my biceps are much more developed than they were Friday morning!

The girls are beside themselves with glee. They have never been in snow up to their knees before. and are wallowing in it (deliberately, that is, not because they've fallen and are stuck.) I told them that their Grandma's house gets this much snow all the time and now they want to fly cross-country several times a winter.

On a more serious note, I have been thinking a lot about the phrase, "If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear." Disasters, large and small, are part of life, and I try to keep my family prepared for most of the calamities that I can think of. Because of that, this has turned out to be a nice little mini-vacation for us. We didn't have to hurry and get to the store before all the bread and milk were gone. We haven't had to worry about what we would do if we lost our electricity. We had a plan for frozen pipes. Being ready for the unexpected brought me much peace of mind this weekend.

The only thing I would change is to have bought a snowblower last fall. Excuse me. I need to go take some more aspirin. Can anyone help me get the lid off the aspirin bottle?

The fat little guy on the left grew up to be the father of my children (who looked very much like this when they were babies.) No idea who the other baby is. A cousin? A friend? I'd also love to know whose hand that is he's holding. I'm guessing his mother.

Judging from what I saw the girls do when they were babies, that lopsided grin on his face means he's concentrating on something very interesting. He also looks like they did when they were still learning to sit up - I can just see him getting all side to side wobbly like babies do just before they fall backward.

I've been trying to see if I can see a trace of the adult in the baby, but nope. All I see is a baby, completely interchangeable with any one of his children.

To see other vintage photos check out Paper Dolls for Boys.

A few photos from Halloweens past:

OK - time to jump back into Vintage Photo Fridays!

These old school photos are all of my mother-in-law. The Kilgore referred to is Kilgore, Texas. Later on she became a Kilgore Rangerette, which my husband informs me is a Big Deal and Very Impressive.

Genetics crops up again, here. In the first two photos I can really see the resemblance to Youngest Girl Child, but in the two later photos she reminds me of Oldest Girl Child. I see my husband and The Boy Child in the two youngest photos, too.

It's most striking in the first and last photos - '42/'43 and '47/'48. I've seen that exact same expression on YGC's face ('42/'43). In the last photo, it's the way she's looking at the camera. She smiles like her oldest granddaughter and has a look in her eyes that I've seen in OGC's eyes.

To see other vintage photos check out Paper Dolls for Boys.

Emanuel Lupkin, the cute little guy in this newspaper clipping, grew up and had a band. He's the guy standing up on the left. We don't know what the name of the band was, or what kind of music it played (my husband says, "1920s kind of music.") We do know that they did a certain amount of traveling, and that Emanuel played the violin. That seems to be an L and a B on the front of the music stands (? Podiums?)

I have hopes of someday finding an old newspaper article that will give us lots of information about them. We have another side of the family that was musically inclined, and we have information about them from just such a source. I'll post a photo of them next Friday.

To see other vintage photos check out Paper Dolls for Boys.

Alonzo Bryson, Jul 23, 1840 - Feb 29, 1920, and his wife, Valeria Wright Bryson, May 21, 1839 - ????. I found the pictures at the Upper Mississippi Valley Digital Image Archive when I was idly Googling for Alonzo Bryson one day.

I was hoping to find information on a different Alonzo, the father of Dow Gilbert, but didn't mind getting distracted with this photo of his identically named cousin.

Here's the thing that makes my head hurt, though:

Isaac Bryson (b 1771) married Jane Carr (b 1775). They had 16 children (that we know about.) One of their sons was named after his father. Isaac, Jr. (b 1816) grew up and married a girl named ... (wait for it) ... Jane Kerr (b 1817).*

You can imagine that with 16 children (that we know about) Isaac-n-Jane the First had an absolute ton of descendents. The family was very fond of certain names, which means that I have to wade through dozens of Alonzos, Isaacs, Isabelles, James, Charles's, Pearls, Margarets, Janes, Johns, Williams, Priscillas, and Valerias, trying to track down which is who. They're not as bad as the Kanatzers, however (another family line), who were absolutely obsessive about the name Elizabeth (oops - have I complained about that before on here?)

To see other vintage photos check out Paper Dolls for Boys.
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*It reminds me of a family I knew, three brothers and a sister. Two of the brothers married girls named Emily**. Their sister's name was also Emily. Now there's a family that's going to give some poor future genealogist a nervous breakdown!

**The name has been changed, although I would guess if any of them read this they'll recognize themselves.

This is my mother-in-law's class photo, probably taken around 1944. She's the little girl in the front row with the black pinafore. She grew up to be a strikingly beautiful woman, as you can see in this prom photo from 1952 or '53. She's the dark-haired girl in the middle of the picture.

To see other vintage photos check out Paper Dolls for Boys.

Absolutely my favorite photo that I have ever taken. I just wish I'd had a better camera back then. This is pretty low resolution. We were living further south at that time, and this was an unusual January snowfall. It shut down the city, which amused this Idaho girl no end. It was the first time I ever got to see Oldest Girl Child play in the snow. I dragged her in kicking and screaming when she started to turn blue around the edges.

The tree had so many blossoms you could barely see the branches.

I'm sure each of these colors represents a different strength of line, but I just liked the way the colors worked together. We were on a ferry and this boat was behind the car next to us.

If you look carefully at this photo, you'll see a second rainbow over the first one. We were at a family reunion when someone called to come see the rainbow, so several of us ran out onto the front porch to see this. It's the only time I've ever seen a double rainbow, although I'd heard of them. (Note that the colors are reversed on the second rainbow.) This was two full rainbows, too. I wish I could have caught the full glory, but I figure I was lucky to get even this much. None of my other attempts show the second rainbow this clearly (or at all.)

I like having photos on my blog. Posts without pictures just seem kind of boring. Pictures are so much more fun! So I thought I'd spend the next week posting some of my old pictures. I'm blank anyway, lately. I can't write at all, so I'll let pictures speak for me.

Here's today's photo. I took it a few years ago when we were visiting the beach.

I got this photo from a family member. I believe she has the original. According to her these people are (from left to right):

George Washington Boylan, Lou McKinnis, Winson Elson Boylan, Lide Boylan, Della Boylan Green, Della's son (name unknown), and then some guy with no head. And the little girl in the front with her dad's hand on her shoulder? That would be my grandmother!

I have no idea who Lou McKinnis is. Relative? Friend? Annoying neighbor who wouldn't get out of the picture?

I have a question about my grandmother, though. Is she blonde in that photo, or is that just the way the black and white photo made it look? Because I always remember her as having brown hair. Even in her 80's. Which might be my answer, right there...

To see other vintage photos check out Paper Dolls for Boys.

This photo isn't very clear, I know, but you should see the original. Meet Emanuel Lupkin, age 5. I scanned this photo from a crumbling 94 year old newspaper, where his picture was printed in the Children's Page section of The Commercial Appeal newspaper, on June 6, 1915.

This picture was, obviously, taken before his sister took scissors to his hair and cut off all those curls. According to the family folklore, his mother (Anna Polewoda Lupkin) cried and cried over the loss. She saved the curls in a little box which we still have, tucked in with all the old family memorabilia. (They are a gorgeous color - a rich brownish-blond with just enough red to intensify the color, but not enough that you're consciously aware it's there.)

We have the two sheet section of the newspaper his picture was in, but it was folded several times. Now, anytime anyone touches it, little bits flake off the edges. My sweetheart is talking about getting it laminated, but I'm scared to do that, for fear of it getting damaged even more. At the moment we have it carefully wrapped up in foil to keep it away from any friction.

We have an absolute ton of old newspaper clippings - obituaries, wedding announcements, photos - my husband's family was very big on that kind of memorabilia. This is the oldest one we have, and the one in the worst shape, but the others are heading down that road, too. You can see why I'm so anxious to get them scanned and saved in several different places. My goal is to eventually be in a position where, even if there was some sort of disaster and we lost everything, we would still be able to have all our family photos and papers saved somewhere online.

To see other vintage photos check out Paper Dolls for Boys.

This is a picture of Addie Lee Clark Bryson and her three daughters. I'm not sure, but I think Addie is the woman in the dark coat without a hat. I don't know who the other woman is.

The tallest child, in the plaid coat, would have been Minnie Elizabeth (probably named after Dow's mother, Lelia Mae Minnie Rolph Bryson, 1857-1924.) The little girl in white, with a big bow, would have been Edythe. The sweet little chunk in the bonnet would have been Irene. Don't you just want to pick her up and kiss those chubby cheeks?

Looking at the apparent ages of the girls, I think this would have been taken about 1908 or 1909. The family was living in Kentucky at this time (where Addie grew up.) The next census has them in Arkansas, where they remained.

To see other vintage photos check out Paper Dolls for Boys.

One of the things that I really enjoy in doing genealogy is finding out things we didn't know. Like this lady, Fannye Lupkin. We had no idea that great-aunt Fannye had been a beauty queen until I ran across this old newspaper photo online*.

It turns out that 18 year old Fannye was the 1924 Queen of the Arkansas State Fair, and Miss Arkansas at the American Legion National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.

You can't really tell just what she looked like, from this clipping ('Humph!' said the Camel) so here is a better photo from a few years later.

I can see her as a beauty queen.

To see other vintage photos check out Paper Dolls for Boys.
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*From the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Caption reads: BEAUTY QUEEN OF ARKANSAS - Miss Fannie Lupkin of Helena, Arkansas has been selected by Florenz Ziegfield, Jr. as Queen of Arkansas State Fair. She acted as "Miss Arkansas" at American Legion National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. (Int'l Newsreel)