Affairs of the Heart...vintage Valentines

It's my week at Lucky Snapping Over here and I have been lucky enough not to have duplicated anyone else's ideas, it was always a gamble to talk about Valentine's and all things hearty and flowery on week three of February!  But don't worry, as the week progresses I do have some extra ideas beyond the 14th February but wanted to see what everyone thinks first!


Sisters in 1969, in their mid-40's



I have an old story about a secret Valentine. 

 Way back in about 1944 my Dad would have been about 22 and serving with the Royal Navy in the second war. He was courting my Mum, a few years younger, who lived in the village about three miles away. They would be married in 1946.  Now my Mum had an older sister Edna, a brusque busy kind of woman even then, quite formidable to me as an Aunt in the years to come and I guess similar in her ways as a young woman. 

 

She wasn't a very relaxed kind of girl and as far as I know she wasn't really interested in boys, or they in her I imagine, though I may be doing her a great disservice here.
Mum told me that she and Dad used to meet for a walk down the country lanes after Chapel on a Sunday evening and often went along with other couples like Gary and Betty, Mum's oldest friend from school.  They used to keep it quiet and 'don't let Edna know' because she would tell their Mum... ahhh,  life was so risquee in those days don't you think! ;-)

Edna never married and was a stalwart of the village, especially the Methodist Church and the school where she was a caretaker in later years.  I was only talking with Colin about her yesterday and how Mum only knew of perhaps one possible suitor, but somehow that wasn't right, one of them wasn't good enough for the other....or something, the kind of things which bothered people in those days.  I think he may have been a minister's son, or maybe she once 'held a torch' for a minister's son, either way she would have made a great preacher's wife, after all she was kind of married to the Chapel in her own way in any case. 
 
Are you getting a feel of Walton's mountain here, all Mrs Godsey and all that?

In later years she cared for my Gran and kept busy with all kinds of village relationships through the chapel or WI and several part-time jobs working for old people she once worked on the farms for.

Well one Valentine's Day Aunt Edna received a small envelope. Inside was a matchbox with (I think) a heart drawn on a piece of paper, or maybe a note, I'm not sure.   Amazingly the postmark was smudged so she had no idea where the package had originated. Well it was the subject of much discussion, and I am sure even for a 'spinster of the parish' a fair bit of excitement in a world scarred with the War Years.

Well Aunt Edna never knew who had sent the Valentine's token.... not until many years later, the late 60's around the time my dad died, did she find out he had sent it down from Scotland when he was being posted there for trips to Iceland. It must have been quite a lot of fun for him, mum and probably the people around them to see her so bemused as to the origins.

Not quite the big deal Valentine's tease we get these days, but just as effective.

365/134 Portrait of a woman.

I used to have a portrait of my Dad's mum, Bessi Anne Stone a lady I know little about; she died when he was only 16 and, as he was an only child and died when I was 8, there was never was a time when he talked to me about her. The last time I saw that picture it was in an old oval frame and got damaged in the cellar / outdoor shed of our cottage in Mousehole. I was not that nostalgic then and for some reason did not save it, so who knows if I will ever see her picture.

...........................

This portrait I found amongst my Aunt and Mum's things when 'sorting' after Mum died. It is my maternal grandmother Leonora Edna Warren nee Jewels.  Looking at this picture she has the look of my great niece and I must show it to the family when they are next here. It is funny how we must resemble our ancestors so much yet often never know it as we don't meet or know people who can make the connnections.

This is the only grand parent I ever knew, and if I am honest there was little love between us, she was 70 when I was born and rather old at that point, housebound and frail, much 'older' than you'd expect a 70 year old to be now.

I think she was fonder of my brother, a first (and only) grandson, born when she was not then 60 and able to look after him a bit and enjoy him.  Leo was widowed in her early 40's as was my Mum, and she had three children still to raise. Her husband, my Mum's father was a strong capable type, a local peacher and school teacher so his sudden death must have left her quite helpless.

It's sad to find pictures of your grandparents in their youth, but it does remind you that they were someone's young mum once full of energy and smiles, much different to the grumbly old lady I knew who watched wrestling in TV but wouldn't let me play cards on a Sunday!

I feel a little guilty for my feelings towards her as she was mum to my mum and when I moaned to her she must have been hurt.. as I would if the kids moaned about mine now!

..........................Oh well, to lighten the mood I am off out with some of the family to a comedy show at Fowey's Literary Festival.. bye!!!

What a find!

How cool is this 'Pocket Kodak' which belonged to my Mum's brother?

.. I found it deep in a box amongst my aunt's things I sorted last week.. obviously Jordan put 'dibs' on it straight away, but it was Colin who managed to locate the magic hidden button which allowed it to open.

It might be interesting to see if it is workable.. maybe a project if she does 'A' level photography in a couple of years.

It reminds me of this nice photo Jordan took at Kuramathi last year....the sandbank was a lot busier when we returned this spring, so it's nice to remember the lone photographer setting up his traditional camera for the sunset....watching me, watching you..

Family day!

.. No, not quite what you might be thinking, no bouncy castles or tombolas, but certainly family played a part in my day today.

For starters our grand-daughter was 2 years old today..how time flies!

And I heard also from our dear friends in Baltimore that they too have welcomed a grandson in the last 24 hours...welcome to Nolan, a compact little guy at 4lbs 5oz, but they say he's doing good.. Happy Grandparents Day Will & Michele, love to you both and Karen, Ryan and that baby boy!


Also in the States, Uncle Bill called with details of cousin Mikey's wedding in November next year.. such a great opportunity for Uncle Bill to bring the two sides of his family together.

I spent quite a lot of the day sorting out boxes of stuff which has been packed away since my Auntie left her home about 8 years ago.  At the time we moved her stuff we cussed and bused about the sheer amount of stuff,  junk, rubbish... whatever you call it I have decided is a reflection of how you feel about the past, your past... and today I feel humbled that she was in fact a fantastic hoarder.  If she had been orderly and channeled in the right way she would have made a fantastic archivist and her memory was sharp til the last time I saw her.

I have mentioned before her father's diary from WW1, but today I found a letter he'd received from his wife (my Gran), telling him that her brother had been reported killed in action on Easter Sunday that year.  The words in the letter didn't sound like the same lady I had only known as a sad and slightly grumpy 70-something when I was a kid. These were the words of a young woman, desperate to ease the pain of her mother and to get her own husband home and safe. 

Later I found the obituary from the local paper for my grandfather who died suddenly at the age of 46, he was the local teacher and it seems the whole village mourned his passing as he was so much part of St Buryan at that time... I guess at 46 he was full-on in the village and it said he left many offices open when he died. I really did know this already, from what Mum had told me, and from stories of him being 'the best teacher ever' but to read it as an official obituary was quite touching.

Maybe too that accounts a little for my Gran's demeanour as an elderly lady, sad after being widowed for 35 years or more.

My favourite find was a super photo of me, aged about 2 years, with my Mum & Dad, I think at some summer event, they were sitting on hay bales, but looking pretty spruced up!

Oh and I found the letters I wrote my Mum when she was in hospital after my Dad had died..I reported to her that the lunar module had lifted off from the moon and it was 'exciting'...Colin laughed, he said maybe I lost my excitment for it when I found sociology!

(It would seem that I have found myself plenty to work with for the next Just Scrapbooking session.. working on journalling!) Oh, and Linda, if you're reading this I found some nice old books to share with you.. and some very old (but quite ugly)buttons... oh and wooden scrabble letters!

Sister layout.

This is the almost finished product.. just a bit of journalling to add.. hey, maybe I should just reprint my blog below?  Used some green rickrack braid, always a favourite of Auntie's  when she made me dresses for Sunday School Anniversary!!

I did the page as part of a double spread, accompanying a Fashion Disaster page I did for Linda's challenge.  Good old Cuttlebug for the labels with hearts, and plenty of bronze ink to distress and vintage it, Linda would be proud!

It was good looking up 'sister quotes', some are really quite fitting, makes you realise how history repeats itself, even skipping a generation now and then!   In Mum's day I guess she was the 'dancer', the two marriages and children, whilst her sister watched, but today Kate is literally the dancer in our family, but I think Jordan would be found with her head in a book or drawing, rather than simply 'watching' !!

Sisters!

Some of you (at scrapbooking) may have seen this picture before, but I just had to jot down something about it. It's a 'not very special' kind of photo, taken in 1970 in my Auntie Edna's back garden in St. Buryan.

She is on the left and my Mum is on the right, not a common site to see them posed together with this much closeness. Mum was always the younger sister and Auntie was always, yes, always the bossy older sister!

I read a quote the other day that every picture has a story, even the most ordinary looking one, and this is no exception.  Mum would be about 44 in this picture and Auntie Edna about 48.  My mum had been widowed the year before, had a big operation and my brother got married so the family had changed in so many ways in just a short time. We spent quite a bit of time with her family in St Buryan, I guess looking at it now, it was company for her, it broke the monoteny and I guess they expected her to 'return' to them then. 

I can't get over the almost bare piece of mat they are sitting on; was it the coldness of the mat or the need for something a little colourful that has them sitting on an old purple shirt? And as for little old me, aged 10.. some fashion faux pas taking place there..I showed this picture to a  foreign waiter at a hotel where we were scrapping and he told me that  'you should never show this picture to anyone!'   Thanks! But I'm not proud and I'm too old and ugly to worry about it now, let alone the middle name Mum bestowed on me because she made Auntie a daft promise, as in her heart she thought I'd be a boy!!

(And yes, it is a layout in progress.. maybe I'll finish it this week)

It must have been a favourite dress, that yellow one my Mum is wearing, she had it on in every photo of that era, ... or maybe it was her only dress.. or maybe the photos we have were all taken pretty much at the same time, you know how it was, use the film up so we can get them back soon.    She even wore it on the Sunday School trip I featured in my Newquay layout last summer.

Little did we know when these pictures were taken that Mum would have a new lease of life when she remarried and we moved to Mousehole in 1973...a city of 2000 people.. and streetlights!! (at least that's how Phil sold it to us!)