Childhood 3

After the move,  Mother brought out her trunk of photos.  Looking through her photo collection was very exciting to me, my favorite thing to do, even better than her reading me a book.  She selected a few to frame for hanging in our new house.  The first to go up was this one of my father. 

Grandma Fannie Barrett, Dad's mom in Rochester, New York sent a recent photo of herself, and Mother hung it next to Daddy's photo.  She came by train to visit us when I was five.  She planned to stay a long time, maybe live with us.  But one day at the dinner table, after our trip with her to the Grand Canyon, and about a month into her visit, Daddy said to her,  "If you tell my girls one more time how to behave, I will put you on the next train back to Rochester."  Well, she wasn't able to hold her tongue.  She packed up and returned to her home.  We never saw her again, but she wrote and sent photos of herself to Mother.

A photograph of Grandma Margaret Elizabeth Jackson, Mother's mom, was the next to get framed and displayed.  Mother repeatedly told the sad story of how her mother died of smoke inhalation after she tried to save the horses, cows, and chickens as their Kentucky barn burned.  Mother was eight at the time.  Her father remarried soon after to a "wicked" stepmother .  To escape, Mother left home at 16, never finishing high school, to live with her fraternal grandmother in Wickman, Arizona.

Mother was one of three children.  She had a younger sister, Florence, and an older brother Jack.  This photo of her with her brother was the next to come out of the trunk and go into a frame.  Uncle Jack had left home early too.  To escape the stepmother, he lied about his age and enlisted in the Navy at the age of 17.  He had a long career in the Navy.  He and his wife were my favorite relatives; they had an exciting life of traveling and living in exotic places from where they would send fabulous gifts--Japanese dolls in kimonos, and hand painted photos and portraits.

Pearl and Jack embrace in the saguaro cactus garden.  My favorite photo of Mom and Dad, because they are hugging each other; they opening showed affection with lots of kissing.  Daddy teased Mommy a lot by grabbing for her breasts, and she always responded with, "Oh," with a giggle and a smile, "Not in front of the girls."  Despite my pleading, this photo stayed in the trunk.  Mother argued, "I already have a framed picture of your daddy and me with the saguaro cactus. "   

Age 2, what a great studio photo of me.  It was said even then that I looked like my dad.  My sister had more of Mother's features.  This one got put back in the trunk.  Mom wanted more current photos framed.

I am about age 4 in this photo.  Even then my strong white shoes were purchased to "give my feet good support", my mother's shoe mantra, rather than concern for style or or whether I liked their appearance.

Mom, me and my pet elephant staged on our car.  Cars were used as a backdrop in a number of our family photos.