Thursday, March 10, 2016

IT'S ALL ABOUT HATS...

It’s a rainy day here in Maine, a perfect day to do a little flea marketing (I am not at all sure that “flea marketing” is an acceptable verb form, but I’m determined to use it all the same…).
          Most of the time, my marketing is totally aimless—a mindless wander through the place with stops whenever I see something that catches my eye—but this time, I actually had something specific in mind.
          Used photo albums.
          I’ve got a lot of loose photos, most of them dating back before the 1950s, and I’ve needed some old albums in which to store them.
          This morning, I found two of them; brought them home.
         
The next phase, of course, was spreading out all those old photos; sorting them by date (as best I could because, of course, my parents and grandparents never wrote anything helpful on the back—no dates, no names, no locations…nothing).
So I spent lots of time today trying to identify great aunts and uncles, cousins, second cousins—even a third cousin; lots of family dogs and various backyards, hedges and gardens; grand automobiles, including my father’s white MGB with red leather seats; my parents’ Lark station wagon (one of the industry’s colossal mistakes) and my grandmother’s 1938 roadster which, according to family lore, was a screaming bright yellow; she had a legendary lead foot and sped all over Boston in it.

And I found this picture of my grandmother herself at some kind of lawn event: cocktail party, wedding…something like that…
          …the sunlight is spilling down over her face and shoulders; shadows fall over her hands and arms. She’s holding what looks to be a cordial glass, or a small wine glass or champagne flute…
…she’s wearing a lovely flowered dress; she’s got a delicate chain around her neck, her dressy watch at her wrist, and the most important accessory of the time…

          …a fabulous hat!


22 comments:

  1. A great candid photograph of your grandmother and the woman behind her. I like the idea of finding old albums for old photographs.

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    1. Yes, the "behind" woman is something else, isn't she? We have no idea who she is...but she, too, has a fabulous hat!

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  2. I keep searching for the perfect filing method for the old photos. First I had big boxes, then smaller boxes (sub files) and then smaller boxes.
    Now I have the smaller boxes in the bigger boxes. Argggh. Most of the photos I removed from albums thinking I had a better way. NO, not yet. The hats are great.

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    1. After my mother died, Helen, my brother and I sat with boxes, envelopes and small albums full of photos. If we couldn't identify anybody in the photo, we threw it. If there were six taken in the West Indies, we threw four. That we, we whittled them down to a manageable number.
      And albums are still, by far, the best!

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  3. You have colourful ancestors, a grandmother with a yellow car, how lively and entertaining she must have been. She certainly looks elegant and a little teasing. I wished for a flea market like yours. Australia is very poor in this respect and also very expensive. The first people who were brought to Australia were so poor they had nothing to bring. Europe's fleamarkets are fantastic. Australian's go to the USA, Europe or Asia to buy and then sell it here. Many goods are fakes, cleverly imitated.

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    1. I adored her, Titania. She died when I was only twelve years old (1958); I still miss her!

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  4. A nice find to enter in this week's Sepia Sat. challenge. Both your Grandmother's hat & the lady's behind her are perfect. You can't be in a hurry when you peruse a flea market! We have some great ones in our area during the spring & summer months.

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    1. I agree, Gail! I've pretty much perfected the slow amble...and don't miss much. A nice, relaxing way to spend an afternoon.

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  5. I do like your family's taste in cars, Deb - an MGB with red leather seats sounds very glamorous indeed and I can picture your grandmother bombing around in a blur of yellow.

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    1. I took my test for my driver's license in that MGB -- and the test administrator asked if he could drive it back to the office! Of course, I said yes!

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  6. I would love to go to a flea market to pick up old photograph albums, but there is no such thing in my neck of the woods, so I am dependent on Ebay.

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    1. Somebody told me that Ebay is just like a Giant Flea Market -- but I think we have more fun just walking around, interacting with people.

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  7. That's a lovely way to spend a day, sorting through photos. I like the photo. I wonder what you grandmother was saying.

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    1. It is a nice way to spend a rainy day, but I get distracted so easily....all those "memory lanes" to follow! And my grandmother was probably saying "NO!" to the photographer -- she disliked having her picture taken.

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  8. Great post, and I'm sure that's a verb, fleamarketing. I have scanned photos taken out of shredding old black paper albums so have digital files...somewhat organized by place and time. Then the photos are kept in envelopes in a box. I just can't bring myself to throw them away.

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    1. I can't throw them either, Barbara. I much prefer the real deal to digitized ones anyway...

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  9. A wonderful animated picture of your mother; I bet there was a good story behind it!

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    1. An animated woman, generally! Lots of fun to be her grandchild -- I spent every summer with her when I was little!

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  10. Good thinking! I could have matched the hats but thought I would give this week a miss. Next week I can match :)

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    1. And I'm struggling already with next week -- no lamb photos! Guess I'll have to be creative...

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  11. Well you could photoshop in my mother's face and I wouldn't be able to tell thge difference - the dress and hat are just the same ss she used to wear.

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    1. It was an era, wasn't it? Those flowered dresses...I can't imagine wearing one now, but it certainly was "the look."

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