Blast from the Past: Pearls in the Mountains

I spent the month of March scanning photos from Aunt Joan's photo albums.  This is my favorite.  Grandma Mary took this picture with Joan's camera when I was two weeks old.  Until this month, I had never seen it.  Mom was 12 years older than her sister Marilyn, on the left, who is holding her son Tom, born about a year earlier.  Joan, (Dad's sister,) on the right, was 3 years older than Marilyn.  Joan is holding her son Tommy, who was 3 months old.  If Tommy had been a girl, he would have been named Julie, but he wasn't a girl, so I got the name. Joan always took credit for that, but when I moved back to Utah about 20 years ago, I realized that in the 1950s, Julie was a very popular name, the equivalent of Sophia today.

This is my second favorite photograph, and I'd never seen it, either.  This picture was taken the month before I was born, and I think Mom looks pretty good.  She's in the center of this picture.  Her younger sister Bobbie is just to the left, next to Grandma Mary and then Marilyn on the far left.  Aunt Joan is on the far right is holding Marilyn's Tom, and don't ask me where her Tommy is, probably napping.  Susan is next to Joan.  The kids on the floor are, L-R, Phil, my cousin Jane, Mike, and my cousin John.  Jane and John are Aunt Bobbie's children.  Aunt Bobbie had a daughter who is a few months older than me.  She must be napping, too.

I know this picture.  This copy came from Joan's album.  It was taken at Grandma Mary's, where the previous two pictures were taken, during a Thanksgiving event in 1954.  Someone plunked five cousins on Grandma's couch and told us to hold still.  We are in our birth order, with Tom on the left, then Sally, Ann is in the middle.  Those three are children of Mom's sisters.  Tommy is next.  He's the son of Mom's brother Reid, who married Dad's sister Joan.  I am on the far right, the youngest of these five.  You might notice our hard-soled shoes.  Mothers were told that children wouldn't learn to walk unless they wore these particular shoes.

This is another photograph new to me.  In the fall of 1957, Aunt Joan hosted Thanksgiving in her home, and Mom was invited.  Mom's sister Bobbie is on the right, and Uncle Reid is across the table from Mom.  Grandfather Cannon is in the back left.  Because Joan is my father's sister, and Uncle Reid is my mother's brother, pictures often show members from both families.  I loved seeing Mom staring at me as I worked on this photograph.

One of my cousins loaned me some pictures to scan.  I've had them for months but finally got to them this morning.  This picture was taken in Logan in 1922.  Ida Mae is on the left.  Baby Janet has been gently placed in the lap of my father, who at that time, and for decades afterward, was known to his family as Bud.  The oldest sister in the family is Betsy, on the right.  I had never seen this picture before, either.

This picture was taken in 1924.  Dad is on the left and Janet is in the perambulator.

I first saw this photograph just a few years ago.  The copy my cousin loaned me is excellent.  This picture was also taken in Logan, where Daddy Cannon, far left, owned and operated a woolen mill.  Dad told me they lived a very lavish lifestyle, with a Buick and a Cadillac.  Grandfather had taken out a large mortgage on this operation, and he lost everything in 1929.  I don't believe he ever recovered from this, financially speaking, although it was a point of honor for him to completely pay back the bank which took many years.  His last home was a 720 square foot four-room house in the Avenues that he built himself.  

While Dad was growing up in Logan, Mom was growing up in Garland, about 20 miles due west.  These 3 kids are posing on the sidewalk in front of their home.  Mom is on the left, Reid is on the wagon, and Bobbie is on the right.  This picture was taken about 1928.  Mom told me she had a very happy childhood with lots of dolls for Christmas every year.

Mom's father was a dentist, and I guess they lived just fine.  Mom told me that people rarely paid him in cash, they paid in chickens and produce and other goods.  Mom also told me that when Grandpa unexpectedly died in 1942, any debts on the books were considered by the townspeople to no longer be due.  Grandma Mary was forced to sell her home and move to Salt Lake City, where she got a job at the state capitol. 

This picture came from one of Joan's albums.  While I had never seen it before, other cousins had and could identify the occasion.  Of course I recognized my Cannon grandparents.  The picture was taken in 1935 to commemorate their 20th wedding anniversary.

I had not seen most of the photos from Joan's albums.  This is a very sweet picture likely taken about 1941,  not long after Daddy Cannon moved to Belle Fourche, South Dakota, to design a sugar factory.  The family took many outings to nearby Spearfish Lake.  Ida Mae, on the left, did not live with them, but pictures indicate she visited often.  Joan is in the middle, clearly having fun.  Daddy Cannon is wearing what everyone else wore when going hiking with the family.  Seriously, I have numerous photographs of men and women all dressed up for picnics in the mountains.

This picture came from my cousin, and it was also new to me.  I'm guessing the date of this picnic to be about 1947.  Maydae is on the left, then Janet, Nana in the center, with Betsy and then Joan on the right.  Notice that not one of them is wearing jeans.  And I assure you, every dress had to be ironed.

I wanted to include a few of my favorite pictures from Joan's albums.  Daddy Cannon was obviously tickled to spend time with Joan's daughter Barbara, who was born in 1949.  Both my mother's family and my father's family grieved for decades when this child and her brother died a few weeks apart, nine years after this picture was taken.

This picture, also from Joan's albums, is a favorite because Nana is giving a child a kiss.  This is how she kissed us -- she held us close and then kissed our necks.  Today we might call her a germaphobe, but I don't think that term was known then.  My cousins have told me that Nana cleaned her house after company left, not before.  I get that.

This photograph, from my cousin, was also new to me.  Here is Nana on a picnic, wearing a dress and pearls.

Only a grandchild of Daddy Cannon would smile upon seeing this photograph.  This is how this man sat when he relaxed.  His left arm went up and over the back of the chair.  Always.

I have scanned in many versions of this photograph.  However, today, I scanned in a pristine original from my cousin.  This is Nana in 1906.  Nana's parents might not have had unlimited resources, but her Driver grandparents did.

This image, also scanned from an original owned by my cousin, is Nana in 1908.  Her dress was certainly store-bought, not homemade.  She once told a grandchild that she loved to visit the home of her Driver grandparents, who were British immigrants with British servants.  The kitchen maid sliced the bread so thinly that she buttered it first.

This sweet picture of Daddy Cannon and Nana was tucked into one of Joan's albums.  Nana might not have had great material wealth in her lifetime, but she had a truly devoted husband who loved her dearly.