I’m not sure how many
of you, my blog followers, know about Sepia Saturday.
If you don’t, you should, so here’s a little primer:
Sepia Saturday is an “open”
blog – a blog that “provides bloggers an opportunity to share their history
through the medium of photographs.”
Every week, bloggers from all over the
world (honestly – you’ll be amazed at the international flavor of Sepia
Saturday!) review a prompt photo posted by our Exalted Leaders, then post their
individual responses to the prompt on or about the following Saturday…
…and the result is a fascinating collection of photographs, essays,
poems, questions, revelations and various musings and mutterings from all over
the globe!
All who contribute make a point of viewing everybody’s postings, and
the comments submitted are sent in good faith; they’re encouraging, funny,
interesting and, sometimes, amazingly tender.
This week’s Sepia
Saturday prompt is an old photograph from the National Library of Ireland: a
wagonload of people in what looks to be a late 19th-century version
of a bus…four horses, drivers, passengers in hats, posed on a dirt road in a
town someplace.
The themes? Travel…Overcrowding…Blankets
Blankets? I thought;
what can I possibly do with blankets?
Didn’t take long to figure it out.
My cousin Robert (almost everybody calls him Bob, but I think he’s more
of a Robert), who lives about 25 miles away from me, shares with me a deep love
of genealogy social history—he and I share old family letters, photographs,
momentos; we give each other pieces of our shared history (his mother and my
father were siblings).
Robert and I are constantly handing each other gifts and treasures, and he surprised me with this blanket--one that's been hidden away in the family summer home in East Boothbay, Maine for close to seventy-five years.
This threadbare wool blanket belonged to my father (see the sewn-in
name tag!); it was the one (I’m guessing) he took to college in the fall of
1936, his freshman year at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
The connection here
is simple: my father would have loved
Sepia Saturday.
And so, his blanket, and my hope that
you will find your way to www.sepiasaturday.blogspot.com;
I hope to see you all there soon!
I'm always amazed at what Sepians are able to come up with to meet the challenge of the prompt picture. Others have mentioned blankets, but a blanket your father probably took with him to college? Now that's pretty darned special!
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed it's still in one piece, Gail! There's a moth hole (you can see it in the photo), but for the most part, it's intact. All the wool's been rubbed away, though -- it's nearly see-through if unfolded!
DeleteYou brought back lots of memories of blankets, including my first "evening jacket" to wear over a dance dress. Mum made a little waist length fitted jacket from a scrap of white wool blanketing from the local Woollen Mills. I used to feel like a million dollars in it. It was just before clothes coupons came to an end.
ReplyDeleteFelt like a million dollars in it? I bet you did--nothing like something homemade to complement a special outfit. Good for your mother...
DeleteThis was a clever detail to take from the theme. I've seen college handbook lists of the things students were required to bring, and blankets were always near the top. I like sentimental treasures like this that retain their practical value.
ReplyDeleteNow that I think about it, Mike, my own college list included a blanket -- even a bedspread, as I recall! The thought of my father as a college freshman just delights me -- and it was SO long ago!
DeleteYou must win the prize for an unusual link from this week's prompt photograph. I had never heard of having to take your own blankets to college, but it is wonderful that you have such a tangible heirloom from your father's life.
ReplyDeleteAnd that name tag, sewn in so carefully by (I assume) my grandmother! He was Gardner Sabin Gould, Jr., but everybody called him Bill. Go figure.
DeleteThis is a great piece of nostalgia that you've shared with us. So glad that the name tag was still there. Being wool, it probably hasn't been washed too many times, though it's threadbare quality does speak to having been well used. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that it went from college in Providence, Rhode Island to the summer house in East Boothbay, Maine -- and has been used off and on ever since. Definitely well used!
DeleteLovely to have something like that as a memento of your father.
ReplyDeleteWell, right now, the blanket's folded up and placed on the floor just inside my front screen door -- my cat Howard (named for my father's uncle) snoozes on it while keeping tabs on the neighborhood...
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