Saturday Snapshots: February 8, 2014

       
{Two lovely 1940s ladies - identified as Marie Finberg and Frances Nikstad - enjoying a moment of photo booth fun on what, based on their heavy coats, may very well have been a chilly fall of winter's day.} 


{Sweetness and cuteness abound in equal measures in this darling photo from 1949 of a little girl dressed up in classic Southern Victorian inspired garb for a genteel pageant.} 


{Four yesteryear collage students enjoying a cigarette outside of their (unidentified) school. I really like how in the midst of the other three's more lighthearted expressions, the hat wearing chap in the center is peering dead on into the lens, all straight-faced and serious.} 


{An understatedly beautiful bias cut wedding dress for her and a classic tux and bow tie for him, helped ensure this lovely young couple looked as though might have just stepped out of a magazine or movie of the day, as they posed for their wedding photograph nearly eight years ago to the day (May 6, 1933).}




{With summer just around the corner, it seemed fitting to post this delightful 1950s swimming pool shot in the hopes that it might help bathing suit weather get here even faster (actual wearing of a swimsuit completely optional, of course ;).} 


{I think we can all agree that the cuteness factor here in this lovely vintage snapshot of two little girls and their beautiful pet spaniel is off the charts.}



{A dramatic, dark grey cloud filled sky lends a great depth of interest to this colour taken in 1953 of tourists visiting Moffat Tunnel in Colorado.} 



{A wonderfully pretty springtime vintage portrait of a woman and young girl (likely mother and daughter) posing in front of a blossoming tree, perhaps, I'd venture to guess in their Sunday best.}




{A heartwarmingly precious studio portrait of two young children taken on December 8, 1928.} 



{Saddle shoe, cuffed jeans, plaid shirt, knotted neck scarf vintage causal attire perfection.}


{All images above are from Flickr. To learn more about a specific image, please click on it to be taken to its respective Flickr page.}

♥ ♥ ♥
  Their names were Flo and Fern. He was French Canadian, she was a native daughter of the Okanagan, who had lived in the charming little Edwardian house, with its coffee bean hued roof and faded cream siding, that she’d called home for very nearly her entire life. A life which, at the time I came into the grander picture of it, was well into its eighth decade.

They were spry and friendly, childless, very much in love with each other, and fond of spending summer weekends at their small 1940s wood cabin up at Chute Lake, a stone's throw away from town.

He would sit outside on their classic porch on evenings during the nice weather and take long, thoughtful draws from a classic briar pipe, the almost indescribably lovely scent of vanilla tobacco wafting down the street and filling my young nostrils with delight. She would have us over for tea, her house more akin to a museum - a small, beautifully curated museum of antiques and wonders - in my eyes, and tell tales, made all the more vivid by the framed black and white photographs mounted on walls plastered with paper many decades older than I was, of what life had been like in this town when she and her sisters were young.

Much like Flo and Fern's house, ours was a small Edwardian charmer, complete with everything from original lead glass windows to areas on one wall of the basement designed originally to house a cache of coal. The oldest house on the street (Tennis Street, to be exact, named for the fact that it once held the town's first tennis court), ours had stood there since 1909. It's still there in fact, though my family has long since moved out.

At the time Tennis Street was a blend of turn of the century homes, some from the 20s, 30s and 40s, as well as newer, more modern abodes. It's entire length up one side could be walked in a couple of minutes, and in doing so, one would likely spot at least a few of the street's elderly inhabitants out in their yards or sitting, like Fern and his pipe, on their porches. Not all of the residents had been there for as long as their homes had stood, but all of those with at least a glint of grey in their hair instantly became like multiple sets of surrogate grandparents to my siblings and I, no matter how long they’d resided on that street.

Some were eccentric, some needed far more care than their relatives could provide, some had fantastic tales and yes, cliché as it may sound, hard candies aplenty, both of which they were happy to dispense at a moments notice. We loved them all, these senior citizens, who ranged in age from about sixty to ninety. Retired nurses, school teachers, WW2 soldiers, railway workers, and homemakers, to name but a few of the roles they'd held throughout their venerable lifetimes.

My family wasn't well off (though the true extent of that fact was a carefully guarded secret in our house), but we never ran the risk of going hungry. There were hundreds of peaches, pears, raspberries, tomatoes and green beans growing in our neighbours' gardens, which they were more than happy to let us come over pick each summer. A good many of which, my mother and I would put up each summer, just as the residents of our street had been doing since before the days of colour television.

They were there with a meal, a smile, an understanding ear, a tire jack, a string of Christmas lights, and yes, even the proverbial cup of sugar (which came in especially hand if one ran low while caning all those peaches and pears), as well as the invaluable gift of their wisdom and life experience. I've always held senior citizens, those members of our society who have beat the odds and made into their sixties, seventies, eighties and sometimes even beyond in the highest of regard.

I loved feeling safe and protected by each of these folks who shared our street, and have tried very hard over the years to keep the memories that they shared with me alive in my own mind. Save for one lady (who, like my family, left Tennis Street many years ago), all of these seniors, these adopted grandparents, these preserves of the past - even if they didn't know I saw them at the time as such - have passed. Many of their beautiful little vintage homes have been knocked down and replaced by faceless, dime a dozen duplexes.

A small number of original houses number still exist though, and every now and then, when I'm downtown, I'll take a moment and wander the length of Tennis Street again, where suddenly I'm ten years old, Flo is beckoning me inside to see her family album (it was stunning!) or take a plate of freshly baked cookies home to share with my family, and my young ears are buzzing with soft voices telling priceless stories that I simply could never get enough of hearing.

I think often of these people and the roll they played in shaping who I am today. The morals, manners, insight, and wisdom they imparted. How generously and wholly their gave of their time, their homes, their gardens and their recollections. I learned at their feet, I grew under their caring gaze, and I hold onto the past with the greatest of reverence and love today, in no small part, because I witnessed a handful of neighbours doing the same, in their own unique ways, when I was at the most impressionable of ages.

Flo and Fern - whose surname, sadly, I have long since forgotten and no one else seems to be able to remember either - left this world quite some time ago, and though they never had children of their own, I hope with all my heart they knew, in their own special way that they had grandchildren in me and my siblings. One of whom thinks of them often and will always, for the as long as I live, treasure their memories as though they were my very own.