Five Days of Family Photo Stories: Miss Mulligan's Girls

Recently Gail Dever wrote about a very cool idea on her blog. Her post is called Writing about your life — and your ancestors’ lives — in five photos She inspired me to follow suit in a blog meme called Five Days of Famiiy Stories 

Just choose 5 photos that you love from your collection of shoeboxes and albums. Feature one each day on your blog or in your personal journal. Tell the story of the photo - where was it taken, who is in it, who took it, what year was it taken, what emotion does it invoke when you look at it, etc. 

 

This is my last photo in this series

This is a photo of my beloved grandmother, Ruth Simpson, in Miss Mulligan's Girls, in the Ellington School in Ramsgate Kent England. It was taken circa 1902 when she was 8 years old. Grandma is the young girl in the middle of the back row.

I am lucky enough to have a few photos of Grandma in the dance group in other years. What surprises me is that she never mentioned this to me. Yet she was the story-teller.

As I a little girl I would listen, fascinated, to her stories of her childhood, of her parents and grandparents, and of leaving England for Canada at the age of 19.  

These photos came to me a few years ago from her youngest daughter, my 93 year old aunt.

Five Days of Family Photo Stories: 5 Sisters in Hats

My friend and fellow blogger Gail Dever wrote about a very cool idea on her blog. Her post is called Writing about your life — and your ancestors’ lives — in five photos

She inspired me to follow suit in a blog meme called Five Days of Family Photo Stories.

Just choose 5 photos that you love from your collection of shoeboxes and albums. Feature one each day on your blog or in your personal journal. Tell the story of the photo - where was it taken, who is in it, who took it, what year was it taken, what emotion does it invoke when you look at it, etc.

Here is my photo and story for today:

 

Cabinet Card taken ca 1905 St. Mary's Ontario Canada

This photograph is of four Purdue sisters - Margaret born 1875, Louise born 1881, Nellie born 1882 and Carolyn 1877. The sisters were milliners in Toronto Ontario, and these wonderful hats are their own creations.

I love the variations they created with two very flamboyant hats in the back, one on the right front much more restrained, and on the left front, one very simple hat. I've often wondered - do the different styles reflect their different personalities or was it simply due to inexperience versus experience in hat making! 

All in all this is one of my favorite photos. 

The gal standing on the right strikes a casual yet cocky pose with her arm resting on the chair and her head tilted slightly. She seems to be saying "Okay world, here I am. What are you going to do with me!" I find it significant that her hat is the most flamboyant. I suspect she was a very confident young lady. 

By contrast the sister seated on the left seems to almost disappear. She is rigid, her body seems so very tiny and insignificant. That simple and tiny hat on her head also adds to the idea that she may have been shy and timid.

 

Five Days of Family Photo Stories: Ribbons and Bows

Recently Gail Dever wrote about a very cool idea on her blog. Her post is called Writing about your life — and your ancestors’ lives — in five photos

She inspired me to follow suit in a blog meme called Five Days of Family Photo Stories.

Just choose 5 photos that you love from your collection of shoeboxes and albums. Feature one each day on your blog or in your personal journal. Tell the story of the photo - where was it taken, who is in it, who took it, what year was it taken, what emotion does it invoke when you look at it, etc. 

This photo was taken in a studio in Guelph Ontario in 1923. Just look at the bows in my mother and aunt's hair! How on earth did my Grandmother find the time to make them look so sweet? And the ringlets are amazing. I wonder if they had electric curling irons back then or did Grandma have to heat the irons on the stovetop?

I wonder if Grandpa Fuller helped out or did he make himself scarce while Grandma was getting her three daughters ready for this photo? Grandma could get pretty stressed out so I suspect she was a tad irritable during the process. No doubt my mother had strenuous objections to being all dolled up and having her hair put in curls! Mother is the middle daughter sitting down and she's 7 years old in this picture.

Although photographers often had standing subjects pose with their hands on the person seated in front, I'm thinking that older sister Lily's hands on my mom's shoulders were to make sure my mother stayed in her seat!  

Do you think Grandpa took them all out for ice cream afterwards? I hope so but knowing Grandma I doubt it. No doubt she would not want their dresses to get messy. Maybe they got to go home and change. I imagine Grandma had a headache and would want to lie down so it's very possible Grandpa took Lily and my mom out for a treat. I never knew him but according to his daughters he was pretty laid back and easy-going. 

Do your ancestors have a story to tell? Maybe it's time to give them a voice through a photo.

Five Days of Family Photo Stories: An Engagement Outing

Recently Gail Dever wrote about a very cool idea on her blog. Her post is called Writing about your life — and your ancestors’ lives — in five photos

She inspired me to follow suit in a blog meme called Five Days of Family Photo Stories.

Just choose 5 photos that you love from your collection of shoeboxes and albums. Feature one each day on your blog or in your personal journal. Tell the story of the photo - where was it taken, who is in it, who took it, what year was it taken, what emotion does it invoke when you look at it, etc.

 

This is a photo of my mother and father, probably in the spring or summer of 1935. They aren't married yet and Dad is giving Mother a lovely bouquet of flowers. Look at her happy face! Mother rarely smiled or laughed as a parent, and this picture lets me know that she once had a life that made her happy. Dad looks like he's hamming it up! Dad was 23 years old and Mother was 19 in 1935. I love seeing them so young and obviously in love.

Standing next to my father is my Grandfather (Mother's dad). It looks like he's pinning  a flower on Uncle Joe's sweater and Uncle Joe looks pleased as can be. Uncle Joe was Dad's younger brother and he would have been 10 years old. The young girl on the far right is my mother's youngest sister Eileen. Auntie "I" as we call her, was 12 years old that year. I think how nice it is that the two families have gone on a picnic or an outing together. 

I bet Mom and Dad are newly engaged and the families are getting to know each other. I think my Grandmother (Mother's mother) must have taken the picture and even that is hard to imagine! But she is missing from the picture and should have been there if the families were on an outing. 

My Auntie "I" is the only person in that photo who is still alive and that makes me ponder life so this is my thinking photograph. There they all are - young and happy and enjoying the day, but time moves on, and as it must, it extracts its toll and ends for all of us. The poignancy of this moment, frozen forever in a snapshot, says so much more than it appears on first glance.  

It reminds me to embrace every moment with as much joy as possible for life is fragile and fleeting. This quote springs to mind:

"Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” ― Omar Khayyám, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Five Days of Family Photo Stories: Two Little Girls in 1917

Recently Gail Dever wrote about a very cool idea on her blog. Her post is called Writing about your life — and your ancestors’ lives — in five photos

She inspired me to follow suit in a blog meme called Five Days of Family Photo Stories.

Just choose 5 photos that you love from your collection of shoeboxes and albums. Feature one each day on your blog or in your personal journal. Tell the story of the photo - where was it taken, who is in it, who took it, what year was it taken, what emotion does it invoke when you look at it, etc.

I'm going to start with this photo - one of my favourites for several reasons. It is a studio photo and was taken in Guelph Ontario in 1917.

My mother Joan sits on the left holding a large stuffed cat. Her older sister Lillian looks quite frightened and is clutching a doll in one hand and pulling at the hem of her dress in the other. It's a familiar habit isn't it? Children who are nervous or shy will often pull at their clothing when faced with something that causes that emotion in them.

I love the looks on their faces - so somber. I can just imagine my Grandmother Ruth dressing them that day. What an ordeal it must have been to iron those dresses and try to keep the girls clean until they reached the photography studio! But Grandma always dressed herself and her girls beautifully.

Joan's hair is neatly parted and slicked to the side. I can picture Grandma wetting a finger with spit and slicking that hair down.  It looks like she even managed to curl Lily's hair! I can't imagine trying to get a 3 year old to sit still long enough.

This photo makes me smile. It's also humorous in some ways because my mother was allergic to cats so seeing her hold a stuffed on strikes me as ironic. I wonder if the cat and doll were the studio's toys or Joan and Lily's favourite toys at home? I'll never know. 
 
Both my mother and aunt are gone now. I can't share this photo with them anymore. But I can share it with others in my family and perhaps they too will smile when they see it.