Family Classic 1924 or 1925

Family classic.
"James" was the apple of Grandma E's eye. She never called hin Jim.

1989 JWE and Margaret a few favs or our visit to Great Britain

As long as I can remember I begged to have a horse or pony. I remember sitting with Grandad E. at the livestock auctions when I was about 4 and begging him to buy me every horse they brought out. I think I was trying to figure out how to get this one home.

In southern England wild ponies wander about for the amusement of tourists. It was hard to know that periodically they harvest/thin the herd for population control and profit (ie pet food).


The farm boy showed himself a little. I'd never seen Dad engaging with any animal besides the family dog until now. He often seemed to distance himself from his farm background. I've always been touched by this connection he made with this little foal whose future was uncertain.

Quintessential JWE

The pony cart was for my benefit. Dad made me feel like a little girl by encouraging this silly but memorable tourist activity. I cherish it.

Dwight & Julie wedding 1980

Are these kids really old enough to get married? Gosh, in 1980, Dwight was only 23 and Julie was even younger than that. Dwight really did have really RED hair....
been a long time since anyone saw that.

Julie has been such a wonderful addition to our family, as have all of my sister-in-laws. They all are important pieces in this family puzzle and building blocks in our foundation.

A truly rare event when Jim and Beth danced together. The time was obviously right!
Look at Jim in that white tux.

Mom was proud and happy to have her family gravitate to town for the event. Below is Aunt Martha and Aunt Gail on the front porch of 2270. I look at the picture and I see mom's african violets in the background.

Uncle Arch and Dorothy Kail. Dorothy was a Sell and Beth's cousin. Her daughters, Janet and Mary Lou used to come and stay with Grandma M. if our family went out of town.

L to R, Arch, John, and Martha.

We had such a great front porch. Many of us have tried to replicate the family front porch as we have gotten our own homes.

1993 reunion

I always loved this photo. Uncle John and Aunt Martha still happy kids.

Patriarchs

The men of authority Paul, John, Arch and Jim.

Look what happens in 10 years

JWE was a semi-pro photographer but when the opportunity presented itself, we had studio shots of the group. Dad was a great photographer so it didn't happen often; but, here are two examples. The top photo was from about 1964 and Christine is the very cute blonde (even if she is a little pouty) toddler. The whole group is happy, cute, and wholesome. Mom and Dad are so so young. The bottom photo is from about 1973. I think it was another church directory photo with the whole crew of 10. If I have the date right, Scott was in technical school, Dave was about a freshman in college, I was a junior in HS. Clearly, several of us are in that difficult teenage nerdy phase (Ok it's ME). Dean was always cool...oh wait, he was cross-eyed as an infant. (gotcha) Hmmmm, hard to weigh that one. It's great that we are ALL cool now...just don't ask our kids (the next generation) about that.

Nice young men in ties and jackets. John and Jay as charming preschoolers. Can't you just see the next generation in these photos? I see Jake and Grace for sure.

Casey, an Angel on Earth

The red hair comes from both sides of the family but Casey was always her own unique personality. I always think of Casey this way...even though she would be a teenager today (hard for me to picture). These are just a few of my favorite images. Happy Birthday Casey.

Beth and Jim

The church photo directory gave us a number of good portraits.

Why are these people so serious?

Not our usual jovial group. Stress of the holidays?
Did JWE snap this one? Don't see the cable.

Remembering D Scott today with love

When Scott had his first birthday, both sets of grandparents came south to visit and have cake. I believe the story was after cake, he somehow ended up in the tub prematurely...and suddenly. He didn't expect it anymore than Mom did. He's not crying though so apparently it was good for a laugh.

Scott is probably about five in this picture. I only know that because there is a picture of meat about the age of sitting up that was taken at the same time. Handsome and happy lad.

Paul E. got to meet his first grandson.

Scott looked like this for most of his adult life. Hair, mustache, and sideburns changed over the years but not much else. Scott was alone for a long time. But when he and Robin found each it was like they found home in each other. He loved all four of his daughters and would be very proud of them today.

As our oldest brother, Scott taught us stuff, sent several of us to the emergency room, let us learn to ride a bike on his Huffy, let us learn to ride a motorcycle on his Suzuki. Tried to teach some us to play the guitar (I was hopeless). And yes, there are more photos of him than any of us...that's what comes with being numero uno. Nonetheless, he set a high standard for all of us to follow.

One of Scott's favorite music artists was James Taylor. It was eerie when I listened to the lyrics to Fire & Rain after Scott died. He used to play and sing that song all the time. It was like it was written for him. I can't listen to it without missing Scott.

Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone...Suzanne the plans they made put an end to you.

I've seen fire, and I've seen rain.
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end.
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend.
But, I always thought I would see you again.

Won't you look down upon me, Jesus
You got to help me make a stand.
Just got to see me through another day
My body's aching and my time is at hand.
I won't make it any other way.

Been walking my mind to lazy times, my back turned towards the sun.
Lord knows when the cold wind blows it'll turn your head around.
Well there's hours of time on the telphone line to talk about things to come.
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.

But I always I thought I'd see you one more time again.

Margaret Marshall Kidd

Margaret is a family name...there are so many Margarets in the family tree, it's hard to tell who I was named after (I think all of them actually). This is Beth's Aunt Margaret and her granddaughter Karol Kay. Compare some of the pictures and you can see Anne and Margaret were sisters.


Someone at the reunion was trying to identify Aunt Margaret's husband, Sam Kidd in an old photo album. These are the two photos I have of him.

June 1970 all 10 of us (It's not double vision)

I think this was for a church directory. Must have been a good photographer to get those smiles. John really looks like his son Sam in this one.

around 1967-68

OK, I'll be the geek in these two. The top one was so large on the wall of shame (you know what I'm talking about) that I had to scan it in sections. I will need some photoshop assistance to show you the whole thing together (it can be done). But you get the idea. If anyone wants the poster size photo behind this, let me know.

JWE Travels

An installment of JWE travels. This was his trip to Australia and New Zealand in 1993. Everyone is familiar with the koala bear shot. In the Shotover Jet shot, JWE is second row, far right. Smiling!

Who was cousin Morrie? Here he is with his mom Jessie and her younger sister, Grandma M. Photoshop didn't improve this picture much but it's a little better than the ancient negative I was working from. Morrie was born in 1925 so he was about a year older the Beth and five years younger than Uncle John. They were all very close. I wish I had a better memory for mom's stories about him and all their escapades.

Triple trouble

These babes in arms are Scott, Barry and Bob. They were baptized at the same time by Grandad M. They turned 40 together at the reunion back in 1992.

Great grandmother Maggie McBurney Sell with the "kids" from her first marraige: Great Aunt Mary and Grandad Sam.

Opie

John always made me think
of Opie Talyor.

Big John 1966

I was in fourth grade when my younger brother John was born. We are ten years apart. I had really long hair and my mom decided it had to go. I couldn't take care of it very well by myself at ten years old...it was down my back. This is me holding John.

All of us were big babies. The hospital tagged him as "Big John" and it stuck for a while.

Marshalls

My great grandparents were from Scotland. The oldest of their eight children were born in Scotland. Anne was born in the States. These are photos of Elizabeth Russell and Great-Grandfather Archibald Marshall. For all the pictures in this family, I don't have a photo of them together.

School teacher

Anne Marshall taught in a one room school house between 1909 0r 1910 through 1918. Basically during her 20's. Here she is with her students. The top picture is the school house as it was in 1968.

A few Marshalls

Anne was also from a family of eight kids. Archie was the oldest. The three oldest girls were Margaret (Maggie), Jessie, and Anne. Anne is the baby in this photo.

Young Sam and Anne

Impromptu grouping reunion 2007

At the Sam & Anne reunion this year, we were blessed to have Dad's sister Ruth Ann with us. She shared memories and photos of her big brother - JWE. We didn't plan a photo shoot but a lot of us were in the area when Ruth Ann was getting ready to leave. There's a few reunion attendees missing but it's a good grouping.

Front L to R Molly, Olivia, Sydney, RuthAnn, Margaret, Christine, Scott
Back Dean, Vickie, Drew, Laurie, Robin, Julie, and Dwight

Reunions

After Grandma M. passed away in 1974, Uncle John was determined to keep the family together. He didn't want us to drift apart. His vision has been such a blessing to us all. We have been doing the weekend long reunion, every year, since the first one in 1980. Three generations later and we just had the largest gathering I can recall (over 80). Four generations were present this year. The youngest was just under a year old and the oldest was 85. It's wonderful to think that most of our kids have grown up knowing their cousins, great aunts and great uncles. And they all look forward to it. Maybe the kids even have a vague idea about Sam and Anne. Legends spring from these reunions.

The first reunion was in a low lying area at Pokagon State Park in IN. Most folks were in tents and the story was, they got flooded out by rain. Not a good omen...but family ties are stronger than weather, I guess. Everyone came back and back and back. 28 years later and we are stronger than ever. I was reluctant to attend the first year. But under pressure from mom/Beth, I made a token visit on Sunday morning that first year with Mark as we traveled back from a trip out west. I have skipped a few years early on but it has been in ink on my calendar since Chris was a couple years old.

From the photo, it's hard to imagine these folks slept in wet sleeping bags.