My first Christmas was in Connecticut my second is back in Illinois. Back in rural Sparta Township. The house I grew up in. The house I can close my eyes and see in every glorious detail. Many things change in life. So many new experiences. Yet through it all that house is still there, always there.
I'm in the foreground and my older brother Jay is in the background. One of the other things that hasn't changed up to this point is my clothing. Apparently I really liked bib overalls. Christmas is more of a thing this year and at 21 months of age I'm getting into the act opening gifts. Jay would be just short of three and a half years old.
When I first looked at this I thought it was just me in the picture. If you look to the left you can see Jay's outline. He has, unfortunately, lost his head to the bright backlighting. Photography can be tricky. Even with all the tools of digital imagery some things can't be fixed.
This is Jay and I with our Great Grandmother Byrd Oyler celebrating Christmas 1955. Her husband George Washington Oyler had passed away on November 21, 1955. The interesting thing to me in the picture are the two picture frames in the corner. Copies of the pictures in them, in different frames hang in our house in Illinois. They are pictures of my Grandmother Byrdis when she was a little girl. I cannot tell you her exact age in the photos but she appears to be under 10 years of age. That would mean the pictures were taken sometime before 1917. Jay is old enough to have memories of Byrd and George Oyler. Try as I may there is just nothing I can recall. Sometimes all you have is old photographs. So, a moment captured in time. A moment that shows she was happy to be with us and we were equally pleased to be with her. Sitting on Great Grandma's lap being loved. Life was good.
Life, like a river, constantly flows toward a sea of change. This would be the last Christmas for Jay and I as the two brothers. Our younger brother David would come along in 1956 and be the final piece in our family puzzle. Stop back tomorrow for a look at Christmas 1956.
No comments:
Post a Comment