Family Photographs - Post 20: Austin and Della circa 1940

I'm posting old family photographs from my collection on Wednesdays, but they won't be wordless posts like others do - I simply am incapable of having a wordless post.

Here is one of the most precious (to me) images from my Smith/Carringer family collection:




Last week I posted the wedding picture of Henry Austin Carringer (1853-1946) and Della (Smith) Carringer (1862-1944). This week's photograph is of Austin and Della taken in about 1940, probably in the garden of their home at 2115 30th Street.

It's interesting to me that Austin is still ramrod straight with a nearly full head of white hair and the ever-present mustache. Della is prim and proper, as always, and wears glasses. They are dressed formally - I wonder if the occasion was their own birthdays or anniversary, their son's birthday or anniversary, or the wedding of their granddaughter, Betty Carringer to Fred Seaver? Is Della's blouse buttoned wrongly? It sure looks like it, doesn't it?

This is how my mother remembers Austin and Della - he was "tall and very demanding" in his old age. Della is remembered as "being small and wrinkled." She knew them intimately throughout her early life - they lived next door to her family and she saw them often. I wish that I had been able to meet them and speak to them about their lives. These two were the migrators - the ones who came across the country as children and young adults, settling in San Diego as newlyweds in 1887. 121 years later, the fourth and fifth generations of their descendants are still here (and scattered across California too)!

This photograph was handed down from Austin and Della (Smith) Carringer to their son Lyle Lawrence Carringer, to their daughter Betty Virginia (Carringer) Seaver (who married Fred Seaver) to me, their son.