I just got back from my trip to Belleville, MI with my Dad and one of my sisters. We had a wonderful time visiting my Dad's sister, my Aunt Pegi. That is the two of them in the picture above. In every photo of my dad he is always formally dressed. Either picture taking was a serious business back then or he always dressed like that. My dad was always the more serious, studious of the two and my aunt was much more mischievous. They are still that way!
The trip was very low key and relaxed since it is hard to plan too many activities with a 92 year old and and 86 year old. Their minds are still sharp as can be but the chassis are wearing out a bit. So we mostly visited at my aunt's house and looked at old photos, a bunch of which I will be sharing here.
That is my Dad at 18. He said the happiest time of his life was being in the army. To which we always say "Gee, thanks Dad." He wasn't in it very long – WW2 was over when he was 19 then he came home and enrolled in the University of Michigan where he mastered in both material science and math (for fun, he said) and then went onto get his PhD.
We spent one morning driving all over Ann Arbor to see some of his old haunts at UofM. We found Fletcher Hall where he lived, the engineering buildings, the Men's Union (where women couldn't enter through the front door, if they were allowed in at all. They started letting women in around 1959 and it's now called the Michigan Union) and the Intramural Sports building. There are so many new buildings that at first he didn't recognize anything but we hit all the high points he wanted to see.
This is the house he grew up in. His parents owned forty acres of land which he and his sister inherited. It has since been sold and there is a large development being built behind the house.
Another thing he and I did was go visit his mother's grave. It is is a lovely, old cemetery. I do have a thing for cemeteries. Fortunately it was pretty small because I had to walk up and down the headstones to find it.
His mother was beautiful. I never got to meet her because she died two years before I was born.
His father was buried in a different cemetery and we didn't have time to go visit there. His father was quite handsome as well.
I love this picture of my aunt and three of her friends. She is the one with the jaunty neck scarf. She does look like she was full of fun and mischief (or, as she says, a trial to her mother).
I'm going to finish with two more photos. I was really taken with this picture of my aunt when she was three or so years old.
After looking at it for a while I realized it is because my granddaughter bears an uncanny resemblance to her!
Thanks for indulging me – I know this post will probably only be of interest to family members but it was so nice to go back in time and reminisce and look at old photos. It makes me want to go through all my old pictures and write on the back who is in the photograph and the date. And to print off some of the million digital pictures I have and do the same. All that history will be lost otherwise.
