Nostalgia

I am supposed to be cleaning the studio but instead I am looking through old hard drives---much more fun. Came across this photograph and thought I would play with it.

The two photographs pictured are of Janet’s mother, Syble, and Clara, my mother. Years ago we were browsing through Waddell’s Furniture on Main Street and Janet came across a tea table she had to have. It never looked right in our little house so it has always sit in front of the Fifties track house picture window in the living room. For many years at Christmas the table held a three foot high wooden candelabra like Christmas tree that Janet bought at Handmakers in the Galeria—again, many years ago. The rest of the year it holds the lamp and these two photographs. The tree, stashed away in a closet in the middle bedroom hasn’t been up in years. Don’t even know where the cups that hold the candles are stored. So, until I gave away the sofa table and moved the tea table across the room to hold Janet’s ashes these two photos had been there for more than thirty years

Of course Janet didn’t take the photograph of Syble but she copied the original black and white and hand colored this one. I believe she said that it was taken when Syble was about sixteen at Pleasure Island across the Intercoastal Waterway from Port Author. The one in front is a yearbook photo of my mother taken in 1919 that I framed back in the Fifties after she passed away. It was taken when she was attending Southwestern Normal School in Weatherford, Oklahoma.

Other than the photograph of Janet’s great grandfather given to her by her Aunt Bonny and a framed photocopy Janet made of my great grandfather’s discharged papers from the Civil War, both of which are hanging in the hall, these are the only family mementos we have ever had displayed. That seems a little strange for two people that have taken so many photographs—well, I do have photos of Janet, all hung after she passed away, but not of other family members.