Blast From the Past

After I mentioned last week about my cousin Tom and his wife having sent me a box of old, old photos, some of you - foolish people, that you will discover you were -asked me to post some of these old pictures for you - give you a glimpse of me in a different era. Well, these are definitely from a different era!

Some of these pictures - I have no idea how well they will show up on the blog post because back then, no one in the family had any really good photograph equipment - probably only a very select few of my relatives even had clue one about how to take a good picture anyway so why would they have needed to have a "good" camera? And, come to think of it, what would have constituted a good camera back then anyway? I don't know - that's for sure!

So anyway, here's a little tour for you of some of the pictures I received and got scanned in tonight - before my scanner started weirding out on me!

This photo -taken probably in the summer-early fall of 1910 is of the four oldest children of my grandparents - Adolph and Ellen (Johnson) Eld. Standing is my uncle, Bertrum Eld, and my older aunt, Ethel Eld. The child in front is my uncle, Ralph Eld and the baby in the carriage - my Mom, Hazel Eld. This was taken in Edna, PA - somewhere in Westmoreland County, near Greensburg, PA where the family was living then.

Here's another really old picture too - also taken in Edna, PA. This is my grandfather, Adolph Eld (my maternal grandfather) and if you look real, real close, you can barely see there is someone's head peeking out around the corner of the house and that person is holding a baby. That would be my maternal grandmother - Ellen Johnson Eld and the baby she is holding there is my mother, Hazel Eld. This photo was taken sometime in the spring of 1910. Note -the dog in both pictures too. I have no clue what that dog's name was but my grandfather always had an affinity for collie/shepherd type mixed breed dogs. You might pick up on that in "newer" family photos - of when I was a kid, with the dog we had then, good old "Lady" -or as I called her when I first began to talk (or so the family folklure goes anyway) "Lady-Laddie-Lou." Even then, I couldn't be satisfied with one word if I could edge a couple extras in, ya see!

Jumping forward a bit in time - there's no date (of course not, why would anyone want to know what a photo was taken, ya know?) on the back of this snapshot, but judging by other photos I found of the same caliber, scenery, etc., I would estimate this was taken around 1938-1940 or so. The people in the picture are, from left to right, my Uncle, Albin Gustafson who was married to my Mom's older sister, Ethel Eld Gustafson and that's her by his side. Next is my Mom, Hazel Eld Hill and my dad, Jim Hill. I always loved as a kid, seeing pictures of my Dad and I still do because I just think he had to have been one of the most handsome men. I never knew him so I can't verify this but it's been told to me over the years that he had what we refer to as the "Hill blue eyes" and if they were anything like my sweet Aunt Mike's eyes, they had to be a beautiful light, almost icy blue, that just sparkled. When I was much younger, people used to say I had eyes like my Dad's family -a pretty blue - but I'm not sure what happened to that color over the years. Either too much eye strain -or too many beers, not sure which -but today they're still blue but seem to have a tinge of red in them too most of the time. But, if you look back at my post last week of my grandson, Kurtis, and see the bright blue of his eyes, then you might have a bit of an idea of what kind of "blue eyes" I'm talking about here.

A little bit more recent (?) photo here - the two older kids in this picture are my cousins on my Mom's side - Carl Eld and his older sister, Nancy. The baby - well, that would be sweet little old me! Cute little you-know-what, huh? Yeah, and everyone is still wondering what the hell happened there!

Note in the background you can see the roof of a car - that was my Dad's car - a 1941 Ford (whatever model specifically, that I don't know) but for the record, when my Mom got rid of it in 1951 and bought a 1948 Plymouth coupe, I was madder than a wet hen at her for doing that. As a small child, I had been told that the car we had was my Dad's, that he had bought it new, etc., and even then, I had these sentimental attachments to things -and that car was one of them because it had been HIS ya know!!!! And, to get rid of a Ford, a darned good old Ford, for a Plymouth - what ever was she thinking then anyway?

Taken probably about the same time as the above photo, this one is my Uncle Albin Gustafson holding me -I'm the one with the cute little bonnet - and my MUCH, MUCH younger than me cousin, Ray Eld! Turkey is always picking on me, reminding me that I am the old fart, over the hill girl and he is the young one, the spring chicken and all because I came into the world a whole three days ahead of him! The nerve of some people's cousins, huh? He had asked me when we were chatting the other night though if there were any old pictures in the assortment cousin Tom had sent of his brothers and sisters - yes, there are - the one above with cousins Nancy and Carl - they would be Ray's oldest sister and older brother. Can't seem to find any pictures of Ray's other sister, Joanie though! Apparently as the third child in my Uncle Bert and Aunt Nellie's family, she didn't rate much in the way of photographs - typical ya know for kids in a family larger than two kids, isn't it? But anyway - this is my dear sweet cousin Ray - youngster that he is - with the old lady of that year's assortment of grandkids. We were two cute little ones though weren't we?

Now, if you recall, back in October I did a post about scenes from where I call home and in it -actually I did two posts on the topic, but that's beside the point -I had posted a photo of my house, as it looks today. Well, this is what the old homestead looked like back in the late 30's, early 40's! I'm not sure exactly when the family re-did the appearance of the house - enclosed the old porch and made it into a sunporch, revamped the interior then too, they did -but then in 1989, I revamped the sunporch and in 1991, redid the windows in the living room and upstairs too to what the place looks like today. Really was a pretty old house wasn't it?

This picture, judging by the size of the child in front (me) was probably taken sometime in 1946. The two older girls - that would be on the left, my cousin Barbara Eld - daughter of Mom's brother, Uncle Ralph and his wife, Aunt Hazel and the other girl, that's my cousin Nancy Eld, who holds the honor of being the first grandchild born to my grandparents. By the way, Nancy reads my blog now (can't get her to comment though) but I'm wondering if by posting these old pics that have her -and her brother Carl in some too - if she's liable to find a lawyer and sic a law suit on me? Think so? Nah, neither do I, really. Nancy, Barb and Carl were the first three grandkids you see and although when I came along, because I lived with our grandparents, it was often assumed by many that I was the "fair-haired" grandchild but in reality, in our Grandmother's eyes, that wasn't true. Nancy, Barb and Carl were the three who could DO NO WRONG in her book! Grandma always thought those three were definitely the cat's meow - as she would have said back then. Barb was the first of my cousins who had a child of her own too -the first great-grandchild, who just happened to come along into the world on April 16th - same birthday as my cousin, Nancy -the first grandchild. Now, how's that for a bit of coincidence?

This is me - about age 3, maybe 4 - not sure -again, no dates on the back. The dog is my dog, Lady. Well, she was SUPPOSED to be my dog as my Mom's younger brother got her and brought her here when I was about 6 months old and she was supposed to be FOR ME! However, remember what I said above about my Grandfather and dogs -well, Lady was ours - his and mine - had to share her with him. Not that I objected to that - not really. We had lady for 12 years. My Grandfather died in March of 1957 and about six weeks later, so did Lady. Granted she was old, in dog years, but if you'd seen how she acted after he died, we really believed then, still do, that she mourned herself to death because every day, she would leave our house and go to the neighbor's homes - places Grandpa used to frequent - and sit out side the back door at each house, ending up at the end of the road at my Grandpa's brother's home where she would sit on the front porch there for a while and then, when Grandpa didn't appear, she would tuck her tail in between her legs and make the slow trek up the road and back home. She really was his dog though ya know - even if my Uncle Cookie had brought her here supposedly for me to have a dog to grow up with.

I'm jumping ahead a bit here - for a minute - only because of the picture I posted above here of me at about age 3 or 4. The pic on
the left here is of my older daughter, Carrie - taken in 1969 and this next picture, taken a year ago at Christmas of Maya and Kurtis - I wanted to put it in here just so you can compare and you tell me if you see a resemblance there between me, Carrie and my little Miss Maya?

Sometime, if I can find them all, I will have to post a photo taken of me at about 6 months (a studio picture), one of Carrie, taken when she was around 3-4 months, and then, top it off with a picture of Miss Maya at about six months. Boy, talk about kind of spooky, those three pictures really are because you can definitely see the resemblance there between me, my older daughter and Maya. And, if I were to add in the picture of my dear Aunt Mike when she was about a little over a year old, you can track the genetics back yet another generation there. Really amazes me when I see them it does, ya know! It's funny too when we look at this picture of Kurtis and then also photos of his older brother and his dad, you can see a straight line of resemblance there too but you can also see the same type of likeness if you compare pictures of Kurtis to my son, Clate, as well. Strange, isn't it how that stuff works - good old DNA!

Now, here we are, back to the 50's again. Here's one of the "bathing beauty" photos I had mentioned were in the pack of pictures I received. This was taken in the summer of 1954 - in front of the house here and the people standing behind me here are, from left to right, my Grandpa, Adolph Eld, my Aunt Ethel Eld Gustafson and my Mom - Hazel Eld Hill.

Now this one isn't the best picture, for sure, but it's not as bad at the other one, taken the same day, when I was really hamming it up apparently for the camera. Since I posted this picture here, I was debating if I should put the other one up too. Maybe not, I thought - one is bad enough. But then I thought it over and figured what the hell - Meloncutter is on a weeks' hiatus from blogging and maybe, just maybe, when he comes back, he won't bother to dip down through a week's worth of posts ya know.

Think he will? I dunno but I decided on the off chance he won't, here goes my really "lovely" pose in that just scrumptious bathing suit. And with that, it will be the end of my picture show for tonight but fear not, once I get the old scanner rolling ok again, there's bound to be more at a later date!