Halloween is coming - time for a look back at Sophia's costumes over the years. 1995 was her first trick or treating experience - she was almost 2 years old and looked adorably mischievous in this kitten costume. Mum made the tail (you can just see the white furry tip behind her left leg) and the ears attached to a headband. We began the traditional of having the ghost in the pumpkin at her side to see how much she grew over the years.
Tanya over at The Other Side of the Road posted today that her daughter is off to a summer program, living in a college dorm, taking an academic course, and getting a taste of college life. It reminded me of the summer we took Sophia to Houghton College for a week-long riding camp. She was considering an equine major for college so it seemed a great way to check out the college's facilities and have a fun summer experience. We drove from Rhode Island to western New York and since it was her first lengthy stay away from us, we stayed in an inn on the edge of the campus just in case she wasn't comfortable with the experience. As it turned out, we didn't see her again after we dropped her off until it was time to pick her up - she had a wonderful time.
Houghton College is a Christian liberal arts and sciences college located just south of Buffalo, New York. They have a beautiful campus and an excellent Equestrian Studies program.
While Sophia was at camp, Vic and I took off in a different direction each day and explored the local area. We visited Letchworth State Park with its Upper, Middle, and Lower Falls; Cuba, the birthplace of Charles "Pa" Ingalls, the father of Laura Ingalls Wilder; Jamestown, the birthplace of Lucille Ball with its great Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center museum; Lake Erie; Fort Niagara on Lake Ontario, and we made an overnight trip to Niagara Falls. This particular section of western New York has a large Amish community. It was quite a trip in the summer that gas prices hit $4.29 a gallon.
Sophia enjoyed the camp so much, she went back the following summer.
Mum and Dad honeymooned in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and had dinner one night at Casa Carioca at the US Army Leave and Rest Center. It looks like they are still wearing their wedding clothes so those must have been their dress-up outfits. Mum's passport is stamped for entry in Germany on 1 April 1956 so I'm thinking they spent their wedding night in Paris and headed off in the morning. Not sure if they drove or took the train; Paris to Garmisch is about 550 miles.
That's a souvenir photo above and this was the photo folder it came in.
Oh my goodness, the prices! I'll have the T-bone dinner for $1.50!
This is a photo of my Uncle Jack, taken at the Apollo Ballroom in Manchester, England in April 1941. Born in 1919 and raised in Manchester, England, Jack was the eldest of three children, my Mum being the youngest. He married young but left his family and moved to Los Angeles, California at age 27 to follow his father, John Sr., who worked
at Capital Records, and to pursue his dream of becoming a professional jazz
drummer. Uncle Jack began playing the drums at the age of 3 and music was his life's
passion. Dedicated to his goals, he followed and fulfilled his dreams,
playing with many famous jazz bands and traveling the world as a highly
regarded drummer for more than 80 years.
At some point, he divorced his first wife, my Auntie Dora, and had only infrequent contact with their two sons, Ralph and Peter. I think perhaps Uncle Jack and Auntie Dora's marriage was one of those wartime marriages that just didn't stand the test of time. Uncle Jack remarried and had a second family in California. He died in 2012.
Uncle Jack was able to combine his two loves, music and travel, into a career as a drummer on the cruise ships. I'm pretty sure this is taken off the coast of Hawaii with that being Diamond Head in the background.
As I dig through the Family Photo Box to write these posts, I learn not just more about my family but also about where they lived and significant places from the past. The Internet revealed some interesting history about the Apollo Ballroom:
Located in the inner-city district of Ardwick Green, just to the south of Manchester city centre. Opened on 29th August 1938, the Apollo Theatre was built for an independent operator and was designed by architects Peter Cummings and Alex M. Irvine. The interior decorations were carried out by noted interior designers Mollo & Egan with the Holophane lighting designed by R. Gillespie Williams.
Seating was provided in the magnificent auditorium in stalls and circle levels. The proscenium was 53 feet wide and the stage was 40 feet deep. There were 12 dressing rooms for artists who appeared in the variety shows which acompanied the film perfomances. The Apollo Theatre was also equipped with a cafe and a ballroom.
It was taken over by Associated British Cinemas(ABC) from 31st January 1943. In April 1960, the World Premiere of the film “Hell is a City” starring Stanley Baker was held at the Apollo Manchester. The film was shot on location in nearby Levenshulme. The Apollo Manchester was re-named ABC Ardwick in 1962.
It was taken over by an independent operator from 30th January 1977 and began to stage pop concerts, with the occasional use for films to fill in dates. Eventually films were dropped.
This stunning Art Moderne style palace became owned by Apollo Leisure, followed by Live Nation. Now independently operated, it serves as a 2,693-seat capacity (3,500 with standing room) concert venue. The cafe and ballroom have been unused for several years.
The O2 Apollo Manchester is a Grade II Listed building.
Contributed by David Pring, Ray Martinez, Ian Grundy, Ken Roe
Source: http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/1238
My fondest memory of Uncle Jack is the way he always referred to my Mum as "Our Kid". Still with the slight British lilt he never lost, it sounded so endearing.
I found this picture of my Mum's cousin Tom in a box of photos that Mum gave to me. I called him Uncle Tom by virtue of his age and I had kept in touch with him and his wife, Auntie Edna, for many years. Unfortunately, Mum and Auntie Edna had a bit of a falling out a number of years ago that seemed to trickle down to me and we lost touch. Little did I know that Auntie Edna was in the beginning stages of dementia about that time and that was the reason that her letters to me stopped. She passed away in December of 2008. Uncle Tom and I reconnected after her death and when I found the picture, I made a copy and dispatched it to him with a request for more details and a bit of family history. Imagine how delighted I was to receive a four-page letter from him saying, "I shall now try and give answers to your queries".
This photo was taken in the spring of 1938. Uncle Tom even remembered the location of the photographer's studio. Not bad for someone who would be 90 that summer! It shows Uncle Tom in a uniform great coat with the badge of the First Battalion, Royal Engineers. He began his active service on September 3, 1938 and was discharged in September 1944 due to a leg wound.
The photo is inscribed "To Da, With Love and Best Wishes, Tom". It was given to my Mum's sister Grace (who we called Dado, pronounced Day-doe, and shortened to Da). I always thought we called her Dado so as not to confuse her with Auntie Grace, who was Mum's and Grace's aunt. However, Uncle Tom explained that Dado was not just a term in our family, it was a term used by many small children for their aunts and uncles but he wasn't sure of the origin. Amazing what you learn when you ask. He also said that he and Grace were very close because of their closeness in age (Uncle Tom was born in July 1921 and Grace in September 1921). Tom was closer to Grace because she married and continued to live locally, whereas Mum went off to Egypt and then Paris with the NAAFI (a bit like the US military exchange and commissary systems) and then after she met Dad, to the States. Sadly, Grace died in 2002. It was so hard for my sister and I and for our two cousins, Grace's daughters, to lose Dado in 2002 and Mum in 2003.
Uncle Tom went on to give me the names and birth dates of his mother and brothers. His mother was my Mum's Auntie Dorothy (Dolly) but she died in 1937 aged 38, three months after the birth of her son, Geoffrey. Mum would have been 11 and she often mentioned Auntie Dolly's early death. Tom would have been 16 but I'm assuming that the other aunts stepped in to take care of Dolly's boys. There's no mention of Uncle Tom's father, not sure why, and not quite sure how to ask the question in case it's a sore subject.
Flash forward to 2012 and Uncle Tom's brother, Geoffrey, contacted me by email (our email address was on our annual Christmas newsletter) to say that Uncle Tom was also suffering from dementia and had been moved to and was being cared for at a care home near Geoffrey. In June of this year, Uncle Tom died and Geoffrey sent me the order of service and details from the eulogy. It added a few more details to the picture above. Uncle Tom spent two years as an army engineer in support of the Royal Marines in Scotland. In 1942, he went overseas with the British Army under Montgomery and served throughout the North Africa Campaign. Following victory in North Africa, Uncle Tom's next stop was the island of Sicily. Following the Sicily Campaign, it was on to the Allied invasion of Italy where Uncle Tom was badly wounded at the battle of Monte Cassino to the extent that he was evacuated via a hospital ship back to the UK. I wish I had been able to talk more with him, if he was willing, about his time during World War II.
It brought a tear to my eye to read in the order of service that the congregation sang what we call our family hymn, Jerusalem by William Blake (1757-1827).
I am looking forward to going through the old photos and I hope I can decipher the handwriting on some of them, or enlist the help of my cousins in England to identify the who, what, where, when and why.
