From Whence We Came #2
As promised, here are pictures from the maternal side of my family. These don’t cut such a wide swath across their lives as the previous ones, but I think they still help to provide context. What this particular set lacks in width, it makes up for in depth… namely my great grandparents. I think the thing that strikes me the most about all these pictures is that my grandparents were very much part of immigrant families. All four of my grandparents were first generation Americans, with their parents coming from what I believe to be seven different countries. I’m also fairly certain that other than English, my grandparents were at least familiar with three other languages (something I wish was passed down). I knew a lot about my diversified heritage, mostly because of a genealogy report I did in school, but it’s much more apparent when you see pictures.
- Grandfather graduating high school. At least I think it’s high school because I’m pretty sure neither of them went to college. If I had to guess, I would say this picture was taken in the late 1930′s.
- Grandmother in her wedding dress. It’s pretty much the complete opposite of dresses today, at least in terms of above the waist.
- Grandparents on their wedding day. She was of Slovakian decent and he was Irish and Welsh. I think they both look like it.
- The wedding party. I have no clue who any of the others are, but I’m guessing many of them are siblings. I particularly like the hats.
- An undated Christmas photo of my grandparents, but it’s gotta be the 1950′s judging from the clothes. When I look at this picture, I see my Mom and her brothers and sister.
- My maternal grandmother’s mom. Everyone called her Baba because it’s Slovak for grandmother; it occurs to me I don’t actually know her real name. Later in life, she was the quintessential matriarch of the family.
- Baba’s husband, Zedo… which wasn’t his name either. I think it’s an Americanized version of Slovakian for grandfather: dedo. He couldn’t read English and would make my grandmother translate the newspaper for him. Somehow he knew if she translated it wrong or made the details up and would yell at her to do it right. How he knew, no one really ever understood.
The images are in the original scan sizes, so I enabled a gallery. Clicking a thumbnail will get you a larger image and the ability to click again for the original size. If you use a browser that re-sizes images automatically (like Firefox), the originals offer the best viewing.