Hello friends and Photography Lovers. Today I pulled out an old photo album with pictures taken from 1912 to 1916. Most of the photos were taken by my great grandmother on my faternal side. She walked this earth from 1888 to 1942. Having photos this old means I'm blessed to see relatives of the past that I never got to meet.
Let me describe this book a little bit. All the pages of the book are black. It feels and appears to be construction paper. The pages are very fragile and some pages have detached from the book.A lot of the photos are glued to the paper. Some photos are loose due to the glue loseing it's hold.
Who exactly is the little boy in these photographs? It no other than my grandfather, my mother's father. Many of the photos in this album are of him. His mother made this book for him I'm sure. All the reference to terms such as Uncle, Grandma, etc would have been what he would have called those photographed. My Grandfather was born in 1911 in a small town in Ontario, Canada. When he was five years old he moved to United States. He lived to be 90 years old. His Grandmother on his father's side lived to be 97 years old. Maybe I have the genes to live a long life like they did.
Two of the photos are dated (1912 & 1916) and this is known because they are still glued to the page. It's great to see some pencil markings below the photos telling us who and when. I'm sure this is with a lead pencil not a #2 pencil. The other photo was in the book loosely. I love looking at old photography and let me tell you it's even more interesting when it deals with your ancestry.
These photos are neat because they reveal what items looked like and how people dressed like back than. Isn't that baby carriage cool to look at? It's amazing to think that this was over 110 years ago. Another thing to see is the old tricycle, I bet if you had that today it would fetch a pretty penny. Everyone kind of lived under one roof here and it was needed because my Great,Great Grandparents had a farm here. Check out the wagon in the background of the third photo. Where's the old tractor at? There wasn't one but they had horses to do some of the work, horse power!!
As you can tell the horses were really important part of farming back than.The horse could pull things but there was still a lot of manual labor required. Plows had to be steered, hay had to be loaded,and many other manual processes. Also it didn't matter if you were a man or women everyone chipped in on the farm. Farming has come a long ways today hasn't it?
These pictures reveal another person in my family tree, my Great,Great Grandfather.He was born in 1857 and lived to the age of 78.I find it so cool to see my ancestors. About 10 years back I compiled my family tree on ancestry.com. My research was via word of mouth and documents available on the site such as censuses, marriage records, news paper articles, and others. So it's nice to have that data along with the pictures to go with it.
The first photo is a 3 generation photo of my grandfather, his mother, and her parents. In photos 2 & 3 is my Grandpa's Uncle Will. Though I'm not a 100% sure it appears he was a police officer. Wonder if that bike is police issued or not? Haha It probably wasn't well maybe who knows.The last photo is my Grandpa's Aunt Essie. In this photo book was a post card sent from Aunt Essie to his mother check it out:
This I found really cool, handwritten in cursive detailing her time. Though not as old as the photos, it looks like it was sent in 1928 from Canada. I still remember sending letters and post cards myself. I just can't remember the last time I did so though, it's been awhile.
In this photography book was some interesting pictures of transportation. The first photo was a picture of the train depot/station. If long travel was required I'm sure train transportation was the way to go. The next few photos are a Model T Ford if I'm not mistaken. Cars were not a common thing for everybody. I think a large family may have been lucky to have one. The first picture with the shadow of the person taking the photo was the town's doctor car.The last photo is my Grampa's cousin Timmy. It's Canada so they certainly get lots of snow. I love the looks of that old wooden sled.
I love looking at old family photos. If you love black and white, no problem because photos this old were not in color. There was no editing photos or taking numerous pictures to get one good one back than. Sure they might not be the most clear photos and technology at the time is to blame for that.
Before I end, I have thought about doing this for quite some time. I have more photos some even older than these. A majority of them are at my mother's house a few hours away.About two weeks ago I came across an article by 
Thanks for stopping by, I really appreciate it. Take care, be safe and enjoy the rest of the week ahead.