Artifact

My dad's family, circa 1948-49:

A Catholic family

My dad is back right in the two-tone jacket. The two younger children are my Aunt Mary and my Uncle Ken and they are the only people in this picture who are still alive. The others are my Aunt Patricia (seated), my Aunt Julia and my Uncle Joe. I never met my grandfather (also named Joe), who passed away four years before I was born, but you can tell that he was a formidable fellow. My grandmother (also named Julia) passed away in 1976; she was a wonderful lady. All told, my grandparents had nine children; two (John and Eleanor) died in infancy and another, my Aunt Margaret, died of peritonitis in the 1940s.

My grandparents weren't wealthy -- my grandfather was a millwright who worked at the Institute of Paper Chemistry, a specialized school that is now housed at Georgia Tech, but had been located in my hometown until the late 1980s. My grandparents valued education and all of my aunts and uncles attended college, which was unusual for this generation.

I don't have a tidy summation here. I just think it's cool.