Monthly Archives: February 2013

Wedding Wednesday – The Clue on the Cake

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I scanned this picture for a post I want to write.Elgey, George.wedding cake

It looks pretty awesome all blown up like this! The photograph is postcard size – not that small – but I have never seen (or noticed?) the details before.

The doily it is sitting on – is that paper or fabric? I’m thinking paper. A fabric bow….

And … hands?
Elgey, George.wedding cake handsI’ve never seen anything like that on a wedding cake before! What are they made of?

Why are they there?

What else is on this cake?

Elgey, George.wedding cake middle

Looks like leaves and horseshoes – for good luck, I suppose. Do you think the leaves and beadish things are silver or gold? I think silver. Flowers… ribbons… what else do you see?

Here’s the top…
Elgey, George.wedding cake top

Some unusual bells, more flowers and leaves, some cherubs. What are those two cherubs holding in their hands?

The wedding topper doesn’t look that much different than some you might see today. What is the base of that topper made of? Bisque? Plaster? Royal icing? An early plastic?

I need to take another look at that hand on the right – it looks a little wonky.
Elgey, George.Wedding cake closer

I’ve never noticed the letters on that bow before. Looks like “I” and “L” on the left and “G” and “E” on the right.

I know this is the wedding cake for George and his bride, Bella, because it says so on the back.

Elgey, George.wedding cake back

I know it’s George Elgey because I have a letter he wrote to my grandmother in his beautiful handwriting. He was one of my grandmother’s “English cousins.”

So G. E. could be for George Elgey.

“I” could be the initial for Isabella. And her last name must begin with “L”.

I’ve never come across the surname for George’s wife in the years I’ve been puzzling over his family. Now I have a clue!

Off I go to ancestry.com and low and behold – a marriage record for George F. Elgey and Isabella Lidford! Registered in the last quarter of 1920 in the England and Wales Marriage Index.
Elgey, George.marriage index

A new clue. And all because I rescanned this picture and really looked at it.

 

 

Hey – That’s Me!

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I was quite surprised when I received an email from Gini of Ginisology last month asking if I would answer some questions for the “May I Introduce to You ….” series at GeneaBloggers. I feel very honored to be recognized this week. Thank you, Gini and Thomas MacEntee for publishing this series.

I wrote my responses in a hurry – thinking I had procrastinated. Then I learned that there were still a couple of weeks before it would post. I thought about going over it with a fine tooth comb to make it better. But I didn’t. So my “off the cuff” words stand in perpetuity.

If you would like to read it, just follow this link.

You may have noticed I’m not blogging as much as usual – pretty much just getting out a Sepia Saturday post – and sometimes not even that. And I’m not getting around to my fellow bloggers to read and comment as I like to do. I hope that will change soon. The older I get, the more a little change in routine seems to put everything off kilter.

Sepia Saturday – (S)No Shoveling

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Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images.

Winter in central Texas has been even milder than usual. In February the temperature has already reached 85 degrees and many days have seen the upper 70s. The apple tree in our back yard (an Israeli variety) is full of buds and a couple have blossomed. One of my friends recently posted a screenshot on Facebook of her weather app showing a temp of 75 degrees and wrote: “January helps me survive August here.”

So true!

Anyway, I thought about posting our rare (but not sepia) pictures of the few times we have had measurable snow in the past 15 years, but as I looked through some of the older family pictures, I came across one that seemed perfect for this week’s prompt.

Here we have snow, houses in the background, window coverings, a short fence (or porch railing) partially hidden by snow, a post, warm hats and coats. Most important, though, are the people with snow shovels who are not shoveling. And a bystander – or in this case – a bysitter.

The photograph came from my Grandmother’s photo album and was probably taken in Weedsport, New York during the winter of 1940-41. The cute kids are the children of Fred and Carol Webber, my great aunt and uncle. (Fred being my Grandmother Abbie’s younger brother.)

Now take a break from your shoveling and warm yourself while visiting other Sepia Saturday bloggers.