All Those Recreated Pictures

This is basically a duplicate of a post from 15 years ago. For some reason, Facebook has been serving me dozens of those pictures where people re-create family pictures from their youth or childhood. I don't have siblings. The few cousins I know of are too scattered and distant, and the pictures too few. But I did make one attempt.

I tried to re-imagine a family classic a long time ago, and it turned out pretty well, so I thought I'd share it again. The first picture is my grandmother, Emily M. Rowe, taken around 1940. She was a very active and athletic woman in her younger days- canoeing, hiking, playing tennis in bloomers (shocking!), riding horses, etc. She is snowshoeing here on snowshoes made in Maine by Native Americans, although she wasn't as active by that time in life.




I still own the same sweater, snowpants and snowshoes. Actually, the boots may be around somewhere, but I didn't try to find them for the re-creation, and I haven't seen them since. But I don't exactly remember throwing them away.




The bulk of my day was taken up with getting a new phone, getting it set up, and getting my apps working on it. I MAY have everything in working order. Probably not, but I can hope. Then, just in case I wasn't irritated enough, I went grocery shopping.

Came home and made a really yummy apple-cranberry coleslaw. That will last me a few days. Picture taken before I mixed it up. The dressing has dijon mustard and a little honey. It's really good!

So, I didn't manage to do much on my work projects today, just a little. Forgot to tell you I actually wrote 218 words in Vacation from Dead Mule Swamp yesterday. I'll see if I can keep that going.

See Can You Go Back Again?

Found the Picture!

This is the picture I've wanted to show you on several Mother's Days. At least for the past three years. But I couldn't find it. Well, I found it this year, scanned it, put the original in the right place, and filed the digital copy. So now, ta-da! I can bring you three generations of tough-as-nails women. Individually that is probably good. Together, we were a difficult trio. But between genetics and what they taught me, "I-yam what I-yam."

On the left is Granny, Emily Marguerite Fisher Rowe, I'm in the middle, and Mom, Catherine Burnham Rowe Leary is on the right.

This picture was taken the same day as the picture of me alone that I shared with you in January (link below). This was sometime around my second birthday.

The old pictures would get sorted faster if I made it a priority, but I just sort of mooch along with trying to get one in the right place when I come across it.

I used the last of my birthday money to order two plants I doubt I'll find in any nursery around here. They cost too much this way, but hopefully they will survive and be worth it.

In other news, I got the mower running! Mowed a little, but I have to find a way to get the seat farther forward. The engineers forgot that some of us still have short legs. And I started weeding the front flower bed. Plants are up enough now that I won't be killing things by accident.

See When I Was Cute

Family Christmas 1969

I was locating and scanning slides almost all day. I am giving a program on Monday about my hike, but it's for a Girl Scout troop. When they found out I had been a Scout, and that it was still important to me, they wanted to add pictures about that part of my life. You may see some of those eventually, but I also found some family pictures.

These are Christmas 1969, at my parents' house in New York.

Mom doesn't look happy, I'm not sure why, but perhaps because what she has on her lap is fabric I bought to make her a suit. The suit was navy blue, but the lapels and cuffs were the plaid. As you can see, it was not yet a suit, and I'm sure she was pretty certain that it would never become a suit. However, I fooled her on that one. I did finish it, and she wore it quite a bit. It was double-knit fabric, revolutionary at the time. Dad just looks non-committal, a familiar look for him.

This picture is ridiculously out of focus, but it's the only one with Om and me in it. I can't imagine why I was wearing a pink bathrobe. It must have been a gift from someone, and I didn't dare get rid of it too quickly.

We went to visit Granny at the nursing home. She would have been 87, almost 88, in these pictures, and she died when she was 91. She was alert, and clearly in charge of reading her own mail.

This is the nicest picture of her. She almost looks happy here. She wasn't happy very much after age 76 when her health declined. There is one more picture of her in the link below, that was taken on her 89th birthday. I can see a lot of change in that year and a month from the pictures here.

You know, she doesn't look as old to me at 75 as she did at 21. Haha.

Back to work on the program.

See Emily M. Rowe

Granny's Favorite Quilt?

  As part of all that sorting I did last year, I managed to get one more quilt where it belongs. This is another one made by my grandmother, Emily Rowe. Have I mentioned how many quilts she made? I actually don't know the number. I still have six. She liked to make sampler blocks of the patterns. For a number of years, she stiched them together into a large curtain and used that as a room divider in one of the apartments she had.

They were so well done, and so varied, that Cornell University took them as a donation for their collections.

However, the quilt she had on her bed the longest (while I knew her) was this one. I actually don't know the name of this pattern. I'm sure one thing she loved about it was the red.

I tried to take sort of a sideways picture to show you the technique. This design is appliqued, and the design is padded. The leaves are padded slightly, and the circle stem, roses and buds are padded heavily so they really puff out. The center of each rose is embroidered.

I've been using it for a lap robe for a little over a month. (It's really too heavy for that, but I decided to do it anyway, for fun.) Today I got my act together and washed it (gently). Then it will be put away with the others. It's both nice and sad that the quilt is pretty badly stained, and the fabric of a couple of the roses has started to split. As much as she loved this quilt, she liked to use it. It wasn't just for display. Of course, the sad part is that it's showing the use.

In other news: I gave myself a talking-to last night after I went to bed. The list of things I need to get done is beyond impressive, and I'm not making very much progress on it. So, this morning, I got busy on a writing project that needed to happen, not related to the Dead Mule Swamp book. Well, I reached my goal, but it took all stinkin' day. I rewarded myself at various stages with a few pieces in my current jigsaw puzzle, which is sufficiently hard to keep me happy. Yes, it's hard!

We stayed in all day again today. It's nice to not have to have any real need to go out. I'll run the snowblower when the snow and wind stop.

See Lone Star Quilt

Sunbonnet Sue

 
I have mentioned from time to time that my grandmother, Emily M. Rowe, made a large number of quilts. Some day I'll tell you more of the story, but today I'm going to show you one that isn't really a quilt, it's a comforter.

This is the Sunbonnet Sue pattern, and this was the quilt that was on my bed until I went to college. Granny embroidered the blocks and checkerboarded it with the "Indian" print.



This week I came across two more of the quilts she made that I still have. That leaves one more that I know of that I haven't located yet. I'm trying to get them in one place, and then I'll decide what to do with them. I put this on my bed, contemplating using it for a while. But the fabric is too fragile. It's ripped in quite a few places. I'll wrap it up again. I'm not ready to get rid of this one yet.


Today was calm and productive. I wrote, I worked on sorting pictures from the hike I'm writing about. I did some other stuff around the house. I'm not sure I've spoken a word all day. Perfect.

	See Lone Star Quilt
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More Cousin Jean- 1950 Style

 
You don't want to see more snow. Me neither. So here's some ancient history. This was prompted because Cousin Jean posted a picture on Facebook of a painting of an historic house in Farmingdale, Long Island, NY. It has been recently named an historic site, with a plaque, because the woman who lived there was an early suffragette. So Jean was talking about visiting there as a child.

Whoa! Suddenly I realized what house this was. I'd been there too, and you've seen one picture from there on this blog at Cousin Helen.

So I went into a flurry of scanning pictures, because my scanner now works right (hallelujah!). I posted a bunch of those pictures on FB. But on the other side of the same scrapbook page... Jean's family visited my family maybe a month before the Long Island trip. It was also almost exactly 68 years ago. That's scary.

I was just turning two and Jean was only a few months behind. I'm on the left and Jean is on the right.



Everyone posed on the front steps of our house. I guess Mom took the picture. Left is Dad, Ray F. Leary holding me. Next is Granny- Emily M. Rowe, and beside her is Cousin Helen (sister to Jean's dad). Then we have Nan- Jean's mom, and her dad George Kilquist holding Jean. Nan is still alive.



Next we have dads and daughters. Check out the car! 1940s something. Guesses or knowledge welcome.



Girls with George. PS. I still have the wagon. I left the background intact because you can see our row of iris coming up and the dark peonies behind them leafing out. That was a nice flower garden come May. The fenceline beyond the flowers is beside the Lehigh Valley railroad tracks.



Finally, the picture with the best clarity is of Jean's family. Helen, George, Nan and Jean.



Fun times. I don't remember this day at all, but it sure looks like we were having a good time.

In other news: spent the whole day doing paperwork and bookkeeping and stuff like that.

	See Jean Hall and Joan Hall
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The Charles Alfred Fisher Family

 


Once again, I'm going to play along with Chuck's Family Friday. I don't think I'll be doing this every week. However, on my recent visit to Chuck & Sylvia's I asked him to show me how his genealogy notebook was organized. He introduced me to the Ahnentafel numbering system for tracing a family tree backwards.

I can't afford to get hooked just yet. Why, you ask? Because when I start, I'm going to want to really be serious about this. I already know quite a bit about some of my ancestors, but I'd like to learn more, and get all the pictures and memorabilia I have organized.

Meanwhile, I share a picture with you that I treasure, even though I only have a small digital scan of the original. It was sent to me by the daughter of one of my mother's cousins. I have no idea what that is called. I just Googled it and of the top ten answers, I got three choices: second cousin, second cousin once removed, and third cousin. So, she's one of those! I haven't seen her since we were children. (This is not the even more distant cousin that I am in touch with.)

Anyway, here's the picture.


It was taken in 1907. I can figure that out because the woman standing is my grandmother (Granny), Emily Marguerite Fisher Rowe, and the baby she is holding is my uncle Jacques. We have lots of pictures of those people. However, the rest of the picture is quite remarkable.

First of all, notice that it's quite a casual pose. Snapshots that were less than formal occasions were just coming into vogue.

The seated man with the newspaper is Granny's father, Charles Alfred Fisher, and his wife (also seated) is Catherine Louisa Hall Fisher. She was an amazing woman. If I get hooked on this, I'll share more about her. The boy at the table is Lewis A. Fisher. My grandmother was the oldest of four children. She was born in 1882, and Lew in 1886. That would make him about 21 here. Ben, next born, is not in the picture because he ran away from home when he was 14. The youngest is Charlie, Charles Henry Fisher, born 1888, so he's 19.

I don't know for sure, but I think the picture might have been taken in a house in Spencer, New York that is still standing. I'm guessing it's Charles and Catherine's home, since they look as if they belong there, and because the boys are also there.

Lew is the grandfather of the cousin who sent me the picture.

Charles Alfred would have been 56, and Catherine 49 when this was taken. I have some unlabeled family pictures, and I'm hoping maybe this photo will help me ID this couple in some of the others.

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Can You Go Back Again?

 


Loretta left for Alabama today. We sure had a good time with her. But before she left, she helped me do something I've wanted to for quite a few years. I'll explain.

My monthly newspaper column was due at noon today. I've been struggling mightily for a topic this month. So I finally wrote up 500 words last night, but it was terrible. Most definitely the worst, most boring column I'd written in the 4.5 years of this gig. After I went to bed, I got an idea. It had to do with snowshoes... and you will be hearing more about that in the next week or so.

So, first thing this morning, I wrote a funny, MUCH better offering, and decided to illustrate it with this picture of my grandmother on snowshoes. And now we come to the project Loretta helped me with. I still own the snowshoes that Granny is using in that picture, although they've been retired to my wall. They were made by Indians in Maine in 1910. Not only that, but I still own the snowpants and sweater that Granny is wearing in that picture. I've always wanted to recreate the photo. I couldn't match the trees. The originals are 800 miles and 70 years away.

Here's our attempt.



Don't forget to enter the contest! Just have fun... don't be so serious about it.

See Varnishing the Snowshoes