Author: S R Janssen

New Month, New Year, New Decade

The Name is the Same BUT Who Were These People?

I was going through my box of old photos which I have bagged and dragged with me for years. At long last, I am sorting them, scanning them and saving them to my photo storage on Amazon.

Naturally, there were some pictures of myself. It was strange looking at those photos as they seemed to be of people who looked familiar, but with whom I had the faintest of nodding acquaintances.

It seems to me that once I lost the chubby cheeks of the toddler, my face has aged but the basic structure has stayed the same. If you knew me at twenty-four, would you have known me at seventy-three?

  • Chubby Cheeks Springfield CO 1947
  • First day of School 1953
  • Thanksgiving at Uncle George’s house in the 1970s
  • Company Christmas Party 1991
  • The hair and the tree
  • Halloween Party end of the 1980s
  • Today
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THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR WEEK 38, 2019

The Aldinger girls: Ethel, Norma, and Hazel circa 1915

Hundred Year Old Photos

The Aldinger girls of Titonka Iowa

Here I am looking at photos that have survived at least one hundred years. The toddler in the high-button boots and the expression of a bull calf is my mother (Hazel). Ethel, the oldest girl is on the left. Norma is in the center; she departed this life when she was 16.

Gertie Frank Aldinger

Gertie Aldinger, my grandmother was the mother of the girls above. Three other children arrived later. George, the first boy was next, followed by Lois, then Edwin.

Back to the Janssens

Jansssens: Wallace, Gordon, and Eleanor (Belinda)

This is the only photo I have of Aunt Eleanor. To me, she was a shadowy figure, as she made her home far away in New York City. She made one visit to our home when I was six. She nearly six feet tall, and had long, long nails enameled red. The boys grew up at a time when boys were kept in skirts until they were about five or six: at which point they “breeched” and dressed in their first pair of pants.