Old Family Pictures And A Journal Of Sorts Part 1

I was digging around on my computer looking at old pictures and decided maybe I need to start posting some of them to my blog here and tell the story behind each one as a sort of historical journal for my kids.
I know some of these pictures they have probably never seen.
So today I am starting with mostly pictures of me. Then as I go along on future posts there will be pictures of my brother, parents, grandparents, and of course my kids :)
The majority of the pictures in this post were taken in Davenport, Iowa where I was born and raised. Also, they were taken back in the day before digital photos. Most were taken with old Brownie cameras. And the pictures from back then were usually black and white and printed on paper that had little scalloped edges.

 

This first picture was taken in 1955. I'm guessing I was about 6-9 months old. Not sure but that's my best guess judging by the length of my hair and my size.

This picture is my mom Elva. It was taken at Christmas time 1958. I remember that we lived in an upstairs apartment on West Second Street in Davenport near where the main post office is now in 2011. We didn't come from a well to do family so I usually remember the "good" Christmases. This was one of the good ones because I remember getting a doll that was as tall as me and she had hair that you could comb and she had her own wooden bed to sleep in. I think my dad made the doll bed. Wish I had a picture of that :(

This picture was taken in 1958. My brother Bobby was 6 and I was 3. I remember the picture was taken on the front stoop of the apartment building that my dad's sister Aunt Mary and her husband Uncle Art lived at across the river in Rock Island, Illinois. Us kids always looked forward to going there because we got to ride across the Rock Island Arsenal bridge, which is still there today. It was the first bridge built in our area and the trains would ran on the top of it while the cars went across the river below. It's part of Lock and Dam 15 on the Mississippi River and it has a swing span that would open and s---l---o---w---l---y rotate around to open so barges and boats could lock through the dam. Sometimes it took as much as a half hour for the span to do a full rotation. In the summer that got to be pretty hot because back then our car didn't have air conditioning. So sometimes we would all get out of the car and walk along the bridge to the swing span and watch it open and the boats and barges going through.

This picture of me was taken in 1959 making me 4 years old. I know my cousin Ronnie took this picture in the kitchen of his parents house (Aunt Alice and Uncle Harold) down on West Third Street in Davenport. Ronnie always was taking pics of us kids.

This one was taken in 1971 and I was 16 years old. My best friend was Evelyn and her mom's boyfriend Tony had a corner grocery store on West Second Street which is where this pic was taken inside of. Back in those days, neighborhood small family owned grocery stores were the norm. We didn't have the big super centers and such back then. I do remember there was an A&P grocery store up on Fourth Street. I used to ride my Schwinn banana seat long front prong bicycle to the A&P to get groceries for one of the older neighbor ladies. Ya like the granny glasses? I started wearing glasses 4 years before that when I was 12. I remember my first pair of glasses were plastic frames and they had those gosh awful pointy edges.

This was taken a year later in 1972. My dog Charlie was half beagle and half dachshund. I bought him for $5 from a friend who couldn't keep him any longer. That was a lot of money for a 17 year old who was working part time after school at the neighborhood drug store for a dollar an hour. And how about those lovely pants, lol? I made them in home ec class and wore the heck out of them. They were high class style then!

This is my mom and dad Elva and Frank. The picture was taken in 1980 and was one of the last pictures of my dad before he passed away in 1981. They were both in their 60's then.

Well, that's it for this round of reminiscing. Will try to do part 2 soon!