Nana, Babe, Mom, Audrey, and great-grandmother Juntje, Grand Rapids MI about 1930
David says his dad, who survived WWI, the Great Influenza Epidemic, the Depression and WWII, always told him the good old days weren’t that good. Given he had a job with the Atlantic Coastline Railroad all through his life, he and his family probably fared better than most, however. Everything is relative in this world. Someone always has a worse situation than you do. And someone is always better off.
Years ago, I had dinner in an old lodge in Hershey Pennsylvania with a fellow Bell employee I had met at a training seminar. Like me, she was a manager, and we were the only two women managers at this conference. So we had a good “chin wag” over a meal, the kind you have with a fellow passenger on a long flight, or did in my day.
We discussed everything from the scary jobs we held as WOMEN managers in a male dominated business environment, to the architecture of the building…one of those neo-Renaissance watering holes, the wealthy frequented in the 1930s, to our divorces from philandering husbands.
I told her about my at-times miserable childhood, and she shared with me that she had experienced an idyllic childhood. Her father a banker, she had never wanted for anything and grew up in what she perceived to be a stable and bountiful home with loving parents.
We then debated whether it was a greater shock to discover your husband was a liar and cheat if you had experienced life’s hard knocks or been somewhat protected from the harsh reality of many women’s lives. We never reached a conclusion, but the question still puzzles me.
—000—
This morning, I was poking around mementos I keep in acid-proof boxes and found photos of my great-grandparents I need to copy and post to cousins. I have not been able to do this…I don’t know why.
Before they died, both my Aunt Marge on Dad’s side and Aunt Audrey on Mom’s side gave me photos and correspondence from my parents. They had saved these items for years. Fortunately, most of the photos had a note on the back identifying the subject for the recipient, who was often a grandmother. (Both Marge and Audrey cleared out their mother’s homes after they died. Marge had cared for Grandma S, who had been stricken with ALS. Audrey had supervised Grandma H’s care (she had dementia)).
I was grateful for these items because in the process of moving dozens and dozens of times, I had left a wake of ‘historical material.’
After Mom died, from time to time, Dad mailed various items to me unbeknownst to my stepmother. I have notes from him instructing me to never acknowledge having received such and such, like mom’s high school diploma or birth certificate. (My stepmother was insanely jealous of my mother.)
He smuggled some things out of the house in my baby book, which he delivered to me when he attended my college graduation.
I love that baby book, which contains all sorts of information I am not able to remember. Like the time when I was seven and asked Dad, “Are things different now from the Old Timey Days?” Historian, archeologist…I have always been interested in the past.
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What a sad and pitiful woman your nasty stepmother must have been. You are definitely a survivor!
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She was pathetic.
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From the sound of things with your stepmother, Cinderella has nothing on you.
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Cinders had it made.
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I have a big box of photos that my father gave me….mostly unlabeled
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Marge had a box like that with many photos from the turn of the last century. I asked her over and over…who is that, to which she replied, I have no idea. She didn’t even recognize her own mother in one photo. See my blog from a few days ago.
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I have my mother’s old snapshots. I need to follow your example and organize protective storage. I will likely have difficulty identifying many as my mother and I shared a tendency to leave photos undated and subjects unidentified.
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I wish someone had taken the time to organize and ID some our older family photos.
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That’s great.I mean the cinderella. sleeping beauty, little mermaid heroines from Disney movies and in picture story books.
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Regarding the philandering husband subject, I think it’s easier for the woman who was not raised on romantic, idealistic ideas of what love and marriage are all about. I so disapprove of the princess stories little girls are fed from toddlerhood on…
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I am not familiar with contempoary children’s stories. However, David and I watch Thomas and Friends on PBS occasionally and the girl locomotive engine seems to hold her own, more than the boy engines at times.
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Love those old photos …. altho’ there aren’t many of my family. They weren’t the type who recorded things. But I do have one photo of my dad’s older brother — I guess he would be my Uncle Michael, even though he died 30 years before I was born, in the great flu epidemic.
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You might be surprised what you can find when you start looking.
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I think that if a girl has a miserable relationship with her parents, she will have miserable relationships with people when she is an adult. Period. I speak from experience.
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My relationship with my parents was unhappy at times because they did not get along and my Mom was sick and nearly died several times. Dad was beside himself and had difficulty bringing home a steady pay check. Also, I think the times affected my thinking. I believed there was not much a woman could look forward to outside marriage. My aspiration after I separated from my husband was to become a teacher, but I lack the patience for that job.
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I always lived in the naive moments. It took me years of time to accept who my first husband was….and he told me before we were married. He was sleeping with his brother’s wife, he told me, and I let it fly over my head. Ah well.
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I think it’s called denial. Sleeping with a SIL was also a practice in hubby #1 family.
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I always figure that these are the good ol’ days.
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Absolutely!
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Wonderful old photo, true treasures. Another very interesting post Dianne.
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Thanks. I love old photos, although some make me sad.
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