One of my favorite things to do when I visit home is to go through old photographs: especially at my grandparent's house. I often day dream about what life was like 20, 50, 70 years ago. What would it have been like to grow up in the 1940s? What was a typical day like for the teenage version of my parents? How the heck did people stay in touch before technology connected everyone to everything all the time?? The closest I can get to answers is by looking at pictures and requesting stories from the people who experienced it all first hand.
Here are a few treasures I came across while going through a box of photos with Maw-maw:
Paw-paw, on the far left, still makes that menacing face when he knows someone is taking his picture haha! He is accompanied by his sister, Juanita, two brothers, Jr. & Maurice, and dad, John, in this fun family shot circa 1932
Maw-maw's parents, Johnny & Lucille c. 1950
Maw-maw rocking some short shorts in 1951
Orville & Lillian, or as I have always called them, Paw-paw and Maw-maw as a young couple. Early 1950s. So much black hair!
And, not an old photo, but a photo of an old dog tag. Paw-paw's tag which he carries it in his wallet these days. He scratched into the back "November 27, 1943", his enlistment date, with a knife but it is barely visible now as it has been rubbed nearly smooth over the years.
Though he arrived in Germany towards the end of the war at the tender age of 17, he stood guard during the Nuremberg Trials and represented his unit at Patton's funeral before heading back stateside in 1946 and being honorably discharged the day before his 20th birthday.
I love learning these things about family and look forward to provoking conversations about life in the olden days :)
