When I was a little kid the photo albums lived in my father's office in the basement. Often I would pull the albums out and look at them while I was on my own. Sometimes my mother or my father or one of my older sisters used to look through the albums with me.
The act of looking through the photos was a private one, often solitary.
Yesterday, I posted two photos of my mother in honor of her birthday. My sister wrote to me yesterday about how she was so happy to see the photos of my mother as a young teen.
Today, my sister wrote to me again. She was so touched to see how many reactions there were to the images. my sister loved seeing, as i did to see reactions from a classmate of my mother's, classmates of mine, my son's kindergarten teacher as well as various relatives.
How sweet is it that this previously private moment can be shared beyond my father's basement office with the world of people in my life.
So now I repeat the exercise, starting with a bonus photo.
This is my mother, during one of her college summers . My mother was the archery counselor. My mother had never touched a bow and arrow before that summer. She did go to the New York Public library, and read books about archery. Then she was ready to teach archery.
I always loved this photo. My mother's fearless approach to learning how to do something was always impressive. In addition to learning archery because of her summer experience, my mother also learned the very important life skill of fixing toilets during those camp summers. My mother was proud of her toilet fixing skills. When plumbers came to fix things at the house she always grilled them for more information to enhance her skills.
These are the photos I had posted yesterday.
This photo was taken outside of my mother's sister's home in Butler, NJ. Now that I am older and can piece together bits of the family history better, I know that my grandfather had suffered a serious heart attack. He was recovering in Lakewood, NJ.
My mother would be spending this summer in Butler,. My mother thought she was there to help her sister with her boys. I believe that my mother was there to get her out of the way while my grandparents were getting ready to move to Spring Valley from Brooklyn.
Here is my mother in her marching band uniform. She played clarinet, she claimed , badly.
I am so glad to have you sitting next to me on a virtual couch looking at these photos of my mother while in her teens.
She's beautiful Sarah!
ReplyDeleteI know my mother would be shocked to be referred to as beautiful. She knew she was smart, she knew she was a great problem solver,she knew she could teach a rock to read Hebrew. I don't think she ever thought of herself as beautiful. When I used to point out to her how beautiful she looked in these photos she would insist that I was wrong.
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