Showing posts with label Carnival. Show all posts

footnoteMaven has tasked us once again with finding something unique to share with our readers: "It is the holiday season and a time for giving. So give Smile readers the gift of sharing, sharing a family photograph. It can be a gift given or received, it can be the gift of talent, it can be the gift of having the photograph itself. The interpretation of gift is yours. Admission is free with every photograph!"

I decided to focus on family pictures and look for the oldest ones I have. As usual I will have two submissions, one for my ancestors and one for my wife's.

The Smorgonski Family - Dolhinov, Poland (about 1932)



I've written about this picture before, but thought it was worth displaying again. This is my great-grandfather and his family (without the oldest sister, Hanna, who was probably in Israel by this time). Everyone in the picture except for the top row of older siblings perished in the holocaust. They were murdered by the Polish villagers in their town of Dolhinov by being herded into a barn that was then set on fire.

Top row (left to right): Zipora (my grandmother), Shlomo and Pesia
Bottom row (left to right): Ida (Ita), Henia Segalchik, Joseph Haim, Avraham Smorgonski and Haya.

Hanna, Zipora and Pesia were the daughters of Avraham Smorgonski and Ester Segalchik. When Ester died, Avraham married her sister Henia and they had Shlomo, Ida, Haya and Joseph Haim.

I am not sure where this photo was taken or who saved it. Since The three oldest sisters left Poland with the Jewish youth movement before WWII, I suppose one of them brought it with her.

The Rightmire Family - Parsons, West Virginia (about 1906)



This is the the family of Thomas Ward Rightmire and Edith Mae Conley, my wife 2nd-great-grandparents. The family lived in Parson, West Virginia and from census records I suspect the were tobacco farmers. In the 1900 Census the three oldest children are listed as having an occupation of Stogie Rollers.

I believe this photo was taken after 1906 which is the year that Pearl Alta Rightmire was married and left the household to live with her husband Saul Isaac Hytowitz in Pittsburgh. I still need to figure out how the son of Jewish/Russian immigrants who lives in Pittsburgh married a girl from West Virginia, who was definitely not Jewish. But that's a story for another post.

This photo is on a postcard, which probably will give me more clues. In it we see Thomas and Edith, the parents, as well as their three sons, Myron W. Rightmire, Dale Mannington Rightmire and Otto Kent Rightmire. It is the oldest family photo I have on my wife's side of the family.

I am not actually retiring this blog, but rather submitting this post to the 81st edition of the carnival of genealogy: "Your Genealogy Blog's Obituary"

• Almost no oaks in my forest
• Rabbi Shmaryahu Smorgonski ZT"L (1854-1937)
• Bringing Moshe Zinberg back to life
• Our First "Ancestor Field Trip" & Buried Treasure
• Twins? Nobody saw this one coming!

In it's short life, the young blog has achieved several of its intended purposes. A recent email from one of my father's cousins says it all:

We met your father and mother and the rest of the family at the Simchoni wedding.
We all "blamed" you for the renewed connections and communications between the many members of the family. Good work.

Even though the blog will be dearly missed by all direct visitors, RSS readers and email subscribers, it is survived by a gigantic (10K+) Geni tree, countless new Facebook family friends and a RootsMagic 4 database that will hopefully continue to grow in the future.

I haven't submitted a post to a carnival in a while, but this one is too good to pass. I actually have three stories, but have photos for two so far (I know the third exists but I don't know where it's hiding). This is my submission to the 78th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy: Pony Pictures.

1. The Ponies in Los Angeles

This is a funny one because it is one of my daughter's favorite bedtime stories. On our second family trip to the US in 1982, we did the west coast tour and also visited Mexico. When we were in LA, my mom's cousin took us pony riding. I am not sure where it was exactly.
The ponies rode around an elliptical track and every 5 minutes or so they would be corralled back and new riders would get their turn. While standing in line, my sister and I started eying the ponies we wanted to ride. My sister wanted the slow, mellow pony, who calmly strolled around the track. I obviously wanted the fastest one.
So we get our turn and get on the ponies we wanted. But as soon as the ponies were released, my sister's shot out of the gate like he was at the derby. Mine on the other hand decided to take a bit if a break:



Yes, those are real tears on my poor sister's face. For 5 minutes she yelled and screamed for that pony to stop, which he didn't.
I just found out that we have an old home video that my parents converted to VHS, so now I am waiting for my copy on DVD.

2. The Mule in West Virginia

I love this photo. According to my wife's uncle, Glenn:

This was taken in Parsons, WV, Summer of 1950 at a family reunion at a second cousin's house. Jackie (left) and Lois (right) standing, Bunny (back) and I (front) on the mule. Grandma was there too, but she got her hand caught in the door of my dad's new 1950 Mercury just before this picture was taken. We were up near Black Water Falls. Somewhere out there is another photo with Jackie on the mule, taken at the same time.

Don't worry, I asked for more details and will share when I get them.

UPDATE: More from Uncle Glenn - This was at a Rightmire great-aunt's home. The Aunt we visited lived very basically in the country with a mule for a work, as a beast of burden and a hand pump well for water in the back of her home. She made us kids eat carrots and other things she grew in her garden. I know it was very near Black Water Falls because we went to the Falls that day and walked in the back water and did a swing bridge. This was just before we moved to Ft. Lauderdale later that year in Nov. 1950.

3. The Love Story

I've heard the following story in several variations, but this is the one that my sister wrote in her roots project:

This is the story about how my grandparents met. Grandpa managed a store in Tashkent and had a business relationship with Grandma's father. He would always tell him about his daughter but refused to let them meet because he said my grandfather was a punk. They met on accident when he spotted her walking with her father one day. Her father tried to avoid their introduction by trying to go down a small alley but because my Grandpa was riding his horse he quickly caught up to them and that's how they met. It was love at first sight and a year later they were married.

Somewhere, there's a photo of my grandmother on a horse, which I need to find and post. But I love this story and had to include it in this post.

This is my submission to the 9th edition of Smile for the Camera: Who are you? I really want to know!

Well this should be easy. I have boxes of photographs that I haven't even started scanning, where many of the subjects are complete unknowns. I have a hunch or two and some clues to get me started, but getting to the actual person is going to take a whole lot of digging. The hardest part about this challenge was trying to narrow down the photo selection. Let's get started shall we?

First up are two photos from a box I believe belonged to my wife's grandmother, Emily Anne. It's full of photographs of her and her family as well as many photos of and by her mother, Pattie Stone Tuggle who was a photographer herself (there are many photos stamped on the back with "Pattie T. Wiley"). These photos may be of Pattie's wedding and of her with two of her children:





The woman in both photos is obviously the same and since they were in the same photo binder I am going to conclude this as a fact. The binder also had the studio name (for the second photo): Leonard & Co. 57 1/2 Whitehall St. Atlanta, GA. I seem to remember that while going through the Atlanta City Directories I saw several entries for Whitehall St. so if I go through those again I may find out who this family is.

The next one is a complete unknown. It is also from Emily Anne's box and was in a glass frame, so it has some importance. It looks like a photo of a photo. I guess that by analyzing the pose and attire I can narrow down the range of years this was taken in, but I currently don't posses such knowledge. Handsome guy, whoever he is:



And here's the last one. This one is from my side of the family. It's one of the photos my mother brought with her on their most recent visit. According to my grandmother (who gave her the photo) this is possibly either one of her brothers or on of her uncles from Russia (location could be any one of several in East Europe). The large man in the center of the photo is the mystery. The way everyone is posed around him suggests he is the VIP in the photo. The woman on the bottom-right who is kneeling is holding his left hand tightly. And what's up with all those little flower bouquets on the floor? Is he wearing some sort of uniform? He's obviously not a golfer, but his facial tan line suggests he spends a lot of time outside and wears some sort of protective head gear. I would love to find out who this is:



Any ideas?

This is my submission to the 7th edition of Smile for the Camera.

footnoteMaven has asked us to "Choose a photograph of an ancestor, relative, yourself, or an orphan photograph that is the epitome of Oh, Baby! and bring it to the carnival." I have a lot of baby pictures to chose from. I obviously have hundreds of photos of my daughter as well as many of myself, my wife, my sister and my nephew and niece. I even have a few of my mother and father, but I think I will save those for some special occasion.

I decided to go with another photo from my brith. I already posted the one of my grandfather wincing in pain as the rabbi does the deed. But the next photo is all smiles. I like to call it the 'Lion King' photo:


I am not sure if this was the custom in 1970 in Israel. It always struck me as odd that Rabbi Rafiki is holding me, an 8-day old Baby Simba, high up in the air while King Mufasa and Queen Sarabi show absolutely no sign of worry for their newborn son. My mother does seem to be a little bit sedated, but my dad is totally carefree and has the biggest smile on his face.

I guess times have changed a bit, because today, if I caught anyone holding up my child like that, it would probably be the last time in a long time that they were able to hold up their arms. I'm kidding. But I would not be happy. At all.

I still love this photo, though. Everyone looks so happy. Except for me.

Circle of Life. Oh Baby!

Submitted for the 6th edition of the Smile for the Camera blog carnival. Theme: Funny Bone.

I guess it's blog carnival post day today. I really enjoy all the different genea-blogs about photos and so I decided to submit my entry as well. The instructions said to "Show us that picture that never fails to bring a smile to your face! An amusing incident, a funny face, an unusual situation. Share!"

I think I have a winner here with this photo taken at the most critical moment of my Brit:



As the Rabbi leans over for the delivery of a most precision cut, my paternal grandfather, Avraham Kilchevsky, just can't bare to watch. The look on his face is priceless. It's an amazing blend of extreme happiness, some sadness, pain and sheer terror.

You see, I was his first grandchild. The first of nine to come after me. He was a very religious man who went to synagogue and prayed every day, so this was a big deal for him. He and his sister, Sarah, were the only ones from their family who survived the holocaust, so this was the continuation of our family.

You can just stare at this picture and feel all these emotions he is experiencing at the exact moment the shutter snapped.

But you can also look at this picture and laugh every time. Which is pretty much what I do.

This is my submission to the 57th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy.

One of my best resources in my search so far have been newspapers. I've written previously about obituaries and how much information they provide as well as the social pages that give a lot of color to the characters of our ancestors. I recently came across a couple of interesting newspaper clips. The first one is about my wife's grandfather, Lawrence Brannon:

Boy Shot (rest missing)
Two Youngsters Were Playing "Indian Camp"
Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) 20-8-1919



Obviously this was a serious matter, but seems like everything turned out all right. Maybe I will do some more research to see whatever happened to the other boy. I guess gun control in 1919 was a bit of an issue. At least I got another verification of his address. From the 1920 US Census I thought it was 256 East Fair Street. Hmmmm....

The second article is the announcement of a wedding performed by my wife's great-grandfather, Rev. Milton B. Tuggle:



This clip confirmed to me that he indeed lived in Inman Park. It also confirmed he was clergy, which does not appear in any of the census info or city directories. But what I really love about this piece is the description of the bride and groom:

"The bride is an unusually pretty young woman and from one of Georgia's oldest and best families."

Too bad there's no picture attached.

I really love these old newspapers. I wish I had access to more of them.