Friday, November 16, 2007

The best picture from Gerry's collection

While I've been working through my Aunt Geraldine (Seaver) Remley's photograph collection, I've been on the lookout for "keepers." You know, the ones that nicely group family members or depict critical family events.

This is one of the "keepers."



This is from July 1942 in downtown San Diego at the Santa Fe train station. The people in the picture from the left are

* Lyle Carringer, my mother's father,
* Emily (Auble) Carringer, my mother's mother, partially hidden,
* Frederick W. Seaver, my father (age 30)
* Dorothy Chamberlain, my father's first cousin who lived in San Diego.
* Geraldine Seaver (age 23), my father's youngest sister.
* Alma Bessie (Richmond) Seaver, my father's mother, recently widowed.
* Betty V. Carringer, my mother (age 22)

I immediately realized that this picture shows five of my ancestors in one photo, my two parents and three of my four grandparents. How often do we get that opportunity?

Gerry and Bess Seaver have just debarked from the train that brought them across the country from Leominster MA to San Diego over about three days. Bess looks tired, but Gerry looks fresh and is absolutely beaming staring at Fred.

Everybody looks so formal - the men are wearing suits and ties, the women are wearing dresses and hats and probably gloves.

Who took the picture? Probably Dorothy's husband, Marshall Chamberlain, who was my father's best man at my parents' wedding.

I think that this picture is a Christmas present for my brothers. We've been exchanging framed photos the last several years from our picture caches.

I'll post more "keepers" when I find them! This is MY family history.

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