ThrowBack Thursday: way back, like 1934

I used one of three images to make a scrapbook page this week. If I were to do it over again, I'd make the image more pronounced but this way fit with the style of the page. I'm not sure that I'll do this page over again but I do want to scrap all three images on one page.

Here are the three images with three girls. None of them are my mother and I'll say she was the one taking the photos. In April 1934, my mother would be 16 and turning 17 the end of May. If these were her friends, they certainly look much much older to me but they would have been more adult than teenager back then. But look, the middle one is doing the same silly rabbit ears behind her friends.

Smokers all. I wonder which one(s) of them developed lung cancer.

Here's a variation of the hands on hip shot that teenage girls still do and still look dorky.

I'm glad I didn't live back then, even if life were simpler. I have no doubt it was harder.

TBT: Another Wedding, 1934

My in-laws, Dorothy and Vince, had another poignant story with their wedding. My father-in-law was a Catholic from a NY Irish American family. He had come 'south' to Maryland to live with his older brother who had married and also married into a family business. Vince went into the same business, awnings and storm windows,  and lived in SE Washington DC. Just how he met Georgetown Dorothy is a whole other story but let's just say you should never ask a girlfriend to take care of your 'beau' while you go away! Dorothy came from a VA family that moved to DC after the family's fortunes turned post Civil War. She was raised a Southern Baptist and that difference in religion was a very big deal back then.

The Catholic priest agreed to marry them but not IN the church. They had to be married in the church rectory and it was as close to a civil ceremony as the Catholic Church could make it. Of course, for Vince to have considered being married in the Baptist Church was unthinkable. His mother Martha would have rolled over in her grave - had she been dead - but instead came down from Brooklyn to attend the wedding. Other than their two witnesses, the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom were the only other attendants. I loved my mother-in-law and to the very end she never 'converted' but she would get an exasperated look when ever she talked of the rectory wedding. There are many ways to make someone feel 2nd class, and that rectory wedding tried to make it's mark on her. Fortunately, it failed!

This is...my mother

ML 1934
Originally uploaded by redazadi

This is my mother.

And this week's meme theme comes from Zoesquid

I like this picture because it shows a part of her I never really knew...the carefree young woman who still had dreams and possibilities ahead despite the harsh realities of growing up in a coal mining town. The unpainted siding of a company owned house didn't snuff the sparkle in her eyes.

And advice? I don't really recall any, but it's probably because I always had a 'fast' mouth. I suspect she may have given advice..hesitantly and anticipating my own quick retort....because I know she often said, "I'd slap those teeth down your throat if they hadn't cost me so much money to straighten them!!"

My mother died of cancer when I was 37.
I love you Mommy. And thank you.

More takes on this theme can be found over on ThreeButtons blogroll of players.