What is a “land girl?” Quickly browse the internet and you’ll find that, like many images of women from different eras, they’ve been romanticized, possibly even fetishized by the vintage boom. So I was thrilled when my Mum uncovered photographs of my Nan, a genuine Land Woman. Neither the women nor the work were glamorous. […]
This photo from around 1900 is a family portrait of my great-great-grandparents Georg Leonhard (1861-1943) and Eva Barbara (1863-1937) with four of their children. One of them is my great-grandfather Johann Georg (1889-1975). My great-great grandmother Eva was a descendant of Austrian protestants who were forced to leave their home for religious reasons. They came […]
Print your photos. Don’t wait. Start now. As it turns out, I am no better than the next digital photo lover, and I hardly see my photos in print. Look at the relics of your ancestors. Photos. Printed photos. Those are the most cherished heirlooms. My husband’s ancestors come from Citta’ Di Genova, Genoa Municipality, […]
This is my favorite photo of my grandma and her sibling in front of the only wooden part of their sod house in Colorado (pre dust bowl). If you look, you can see the sod roof and sod siding. Grandma told stories about how they lived completely off of their land (homestead) and lost everything […]
My paternal grandmother. A Valentine photo. She was almost 12 years old when this portrait was taken. She wrote later in life, “My early childhood memories are all happy. I cannot remember anything negative.” Her mother died when she was six and her relationship with her step-mother was difficult, but Grandma didn’t complain. She suffered […]
“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.” Dorothea Lange Back in the 1970s, our parents must have been so relaxed. We would invite as many friends as we could fit in the car and head to Church Haven on the West Coast of South Africa on hot summer weekends […]
When I was in high school, I inherited camera gear from my grandfather. I had never shown interest in photography, but his camera soon became special to me and ended up leading a path I didn’t intend. Even though I went to University for Electrical Engineering, the camera started slowly taking over and lead me […]
I adore this photograph of my Grandma Edna (middle), her mother Emma and her father Bernard from the 1920’s. Sadly my Great Grandpa Bernard died young in an accident on the rails where he worked. This photograph fills my imagination with curiosity about what it might have been like to live at the time. I […]
This is my favorite photo of grandma and namesake, Margaret. She was 17; the year was 1937. It was most likely taken somewhere in Canada on one of her trips to visit her grandma’s farm. When I was little, she used to read me the letters her grandma sent her and this photo always reminds […]
I am astounded at how brave and adventuresome my parents were. Back in 1968, they piled all five of their kids into the back of their station wagon for a cross-country drive from Ottawa to Vancouver. (That’s me, peering out the window, ready for an adventure!) Camping in provincial parks, dropping in on cousins and […]
Recent Comments