a box of photographs... part 5

I realize it has been a while since I shared any photographs from my "A Box of Photographs" series. While much time has passed, this collection of images is as significant now as it was when I first shared Part 1 of the series and wrote the following:

"Many years ago I received a huge, heavy box from a friend at Christmas. Inside was a collection of hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of photographs, all but a few black + white, each lovingly captioned on the back with date and location, chronicling a family's life from the 1930s through the early 1970s. Every moment was photographed. The illustrated story of an American midwestern military family. Accidental multiple exposures, blurry photographs, and poorly exposed images were kept and indexed just as carefully as those that were well composed. I couldn't believe my eyes."

Something significant about these photographs is that most of them have been lovingly captioned on the back. The names of those in the photo, the town it was taken in, the date... this fills in gaps, makes subjects characters rather than anonymous, actual people rather than just faces. 

I'll be focusing on these characters today, all of the photographs of Part 5 in the series are posed family portraits. Stay tuned for Part 6.

"Sept. 7, 1953. St. Louis. Before leaving on train to New York + England"

"Doug, Mar. 1960"

"Sept. '60"

"Sept. '60"

"Sept. '60"

"Sept. 26, 1961"

"Neighbors at cabin at Grafton"

"Cabin at Grafton"

"Cabin at Grafton"

Here are the first four installments, in case you missed them --

A box of photographs.... part 1.
A box of photographs.... part 2.
A box of photographs.... part 3.
A box of photographs.... part 4.

Veteran's Day

My maternal grandmother, Helen Jane Byers, was born in Wisconsin on December 31, 1916. She passed away in Ohio at age 84, November 3, 2001. Before she met and married my grandfather, a widower with 5 children with whom she'd have two children of her own (including my mother, their youngest), my grandmother served in the US Navy. 

I have inherited hundreds of photographs of my grandmother's family -- her siblings and parents and uncles and aunts -- over the years. I have her Navy ring and some of her documents, official photographs and snapshots of her and her friends goofing off around New York while they were in training at the Naval Training School in the Bronx. It's a time of her life I never remember her discussing, and I'm fascinated by it. 

In honor of my grandmother's life and service on this Veteran's Day, here are a few photographs and postcards from her time in the Navy.