March 18 is my Gramma Babe’s birthday. Had she lived she’d be 118 years old. I’ve spent part of this morning scanning a few photos from the sheaves of photos and other documents I took from Mother’s house. So. Many. Photographs.
As a little girl.
With her older siblings Lillian Ophelia (11 years older) and Bob (10 years older).
With her mother, Anna Wondra Houska, and her sister Lillian. I suspect this was around the time Aunt Lil married.
With her mother. Gramma once told me that when she was very little she’d stand at the kitchen door and call out to her mother in the kitchen garden “Mamma, do you love me?” The answer came back “If I didn’t, who would?” I thought that was horrible!
As a young woman, early 1920s. This is the same hairdo in her wedding portraits.
Cities Service office, Minneapolis/St. Paul, 1923. Gramma is sitting on the desk at extreme right.
With Grampa Al, early 1930s.
I never in my life saw Gramma in a bathing suit. This is what she would have called “schnootzy.”
1940s. Tough to tell if it’s before, during, or after the war, but I’m gonna guess after.
With Grampa Al in an antique car, early 1950s.
March 13, 1954. I’m guessing this is Mother’s return home to Louisiana after her three post-college years working in New York. Uncle Bill at left, Grampa Al, Gramma, an unknown man, and Mother.
Christmas 1976 or 1977.
With me in 1980, a studio portrait from Muller’s department store on Ryan Street.