Lyle and Betty Carringer Have an Elephant Ride in 1924 -- (Not So) Wordless Wednesday #892

 This is one of the priceless (to me) images in my computer file folders:

This photograph was taken at the San Diego Zoo, probably in January 2024, and perhaps on the first day of elephant rides (1 January 1924).  The photograph appeared in the ZooNooz magazine published by the San Diego Zoo.  See the newspaper article Children Rode Elephants At the San Diego Zoo in 1924 for more details.

The two people in the front of the howdah on the elephant's back are my grandfather Lyle L. Carringer (1891-1976) (facing the camera - I know that is him) and my mother Betty Carringer (1919-2002, so age 4 at the time) sitting back-to-back with Lyle (facing to the right, her face is hidden). The elephant's name was probably Joy.

 This photograph was in the Carringer family photograph collection handed down from my grandparents.

The world-renowned San Diego Zoo has been a fixture in the lives of my grandparents, my parents, my own family, and my daughters' families since it opened in 1916. The Zoo was only about two miles to the west of the Carringer family home on 30th Street in San Diego, and we could often hear animal sounds (lion roars, monkey screams, bird squawks, etc) at the house when the wind was from the west (which is the prevailing wind direction in San Diego), especially on the second story of the building where I grew up.

I think it was just "luck" that my grandfather and mother were in thep icture published by ZooNooz.  If it was the first day, and the photographer was there to shoot pictures, it has to be a fantastic coincidence.  My grsandfather loved to go to new events and somehow scored tickets to go to the elephant ride on the day the photographer was there.

I colorized the scanned black and white photograph from ZooNooz magazine using the Google Gemini photo tools.

This photograph is a part of my family history.  

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