Sepia Saturday – Arise All Women (and Men) Who Have Hearts!

I have a couple of four generation photographs to share for Mother’s Day.

Abbie, Doris, Kathy, Dorinda, Eveline

Four Generations; Me as a Baby

I’m the baby in the arms of my great-grandmother, Dorinda Webber nee Strange. My grandmother, Abbie Smith nee Webber is on the left; my mom is in back; and my grandmother Eveline Hoskins nee Coates is on the right.

I was born in mid-October in Iowa, so it seems unusual that everyone is in short sleeves. The older ladies look a little dressed up, especially my great-grandmother, who is wearing a hat. Abbie’s apron indicates that the picture was taken at her home and that she hosted a meal. I bet I was the guest of honor!

Everyone looks happy – well Abbie may be concerned about a roast in the oven. Or maybe the sun is shining just a bit in her eyes.

New life. A new mother. So much loving ahead. So many possibilities.

This next picture was taken several years later. It features Eveline on the left; mom in the back; and I am sharing a chair with my great-grandmother Mary Coates nee Harris.

Mary Coates, Eveline, Doris, Kathy copy

Four Generations

My parents were divorced by this time and my mother and I lived with her parents – and so did my great-grandmother. Lots of love and hugs readily available for this young girl.

Whenever I look at this photograph, I get a little sad….. but not for a reason you would assume. It makes me sad because I had a better picture taken at the same time in the same pose. My grandmother’s eyes were open…. we all just looked a little better.

And I lost it! How could I have been so careless?

I took it to church with me to share at a women’s Bible study and I must have dropped it on my way to the car. I lost another picture at the same time of my grandmother Abbie. I didn’t have a “second” of that one.

I can’t remember the exact reason I took the pictures with me, but it had something to do with people (or women) who had had an impact on your life.

scan0071

Me, Mom and Kay

My grandmothers – as attested to in the name of this blog – had a profound influence on my life. As did my mother, of course. And my great-grandmothers. How lucky I was to be embraced by love every day – and to always be in the care and protection of my mother and grandmothers.

Mother’s Day did not begin as a day to buy cards and send flowers and take your mother out to brunch. Or to share pictures of them on Facebook. Or on your blog.

The roots of Mother’s Day in the United States began as a call to peace in 1870. And later as one daughter’s remembrance of her mother who worked for that call to peace.

The women in my family, as I knew them, were nurturers and peacemakers – or peacekeepers. Their care and concern extended beyond their immediate families. I knew them to be women who had hearts.

And so I’ll end with this link to ‘From the Bosom of the Devastated Earth,’ a History of Mother’s Day for Peace by Matthew Albracht, published in The Huffington Post 05/07/2013.

And this excerpt from Julia Ward Howe’s “Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World” also called the “Mother’s Day Proclamation”, written in 1870 in the aftermath of the U. S. Civil War  and the Franco-Prussian War.

“Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of tears!… We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says “Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”

May we all have hearts that are tender and reject violence in its many forms in honor of those who nurtured us.

You can read the full text here:

Mothers Day Proclamation copy

Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division

Sepia Sat May 11, 2013And, although I did not stick with the theme this week, this is my contribution to Sepia Saturday. Please pay other participants a visit.

Sepia Saturday – Angela in Yellow

 

Sepia Sat 4 May 2013Sepia 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.

I had decided not to participate in Sepia Saturday this week, but when I woke up this morning I thought of a photograph to share.

This is a picture of Angela Loverde nee Parlati, my husband’s grandmother.

Parlati,Angela in yellowI thought of this picture because of the similar side view, hair style, and age of the women.

I  have shared other photographs of Angela for Sepia Saturday. Her wedding pictures were featured here and she appeared in a post about her husband’s barbershop here.  As I mentioned in the post about the barbershop, Angela was a smoker and that is her other connection to the photo prompt.

Joseph Loverde and Angela Parlati

Joseph Loverde and Angela Parlati

Although Angela’s wedding pictures prompted speculation among commenters that the family was wealthy, in truth, they were not. The family put a lot of resources into the wedding but, as my husband says, “They were Italian. Of course they had a big wedding!” Angela and her husband, Joe Loverde, married during the Depression and moved in with her parents. They never moved out.

Angela’s father died fairly young, but her mother lived a long life and was always the head of the household. Nana, as everyone called her, had a strong personality. She did not abide Angela smoking in the house and Angela was relegated to the outside or the bathroom. I never saw Angela smoke in public. When she craved a cigarette, she would disappear to the bathroom and return after what seemed a very long time. Pity the poor person who needed to use the facilities after one of Angela’s disappearances!

Other Sepia Saturday participants would enjoy a visit from you too!

 

 

Would You Like to Swing on a Star?

As a little tribute to Bing Crosby on the 110th anniversary of his birth (May 3, 1903), I thought I’d share another piece of sheet music from my collection. When I was a little girl I liked songs like this one because they were accessible to my young ears.

Would like to be a mule or a pig or a fish?
Of course not, silly!

Would you like to swing on a star?
Oh, yes!

The song wasn’t just silly, though – it had a moral. If you don’t want to be a mule, you had better go to school!

sheet music.bing crosby-swing on a star

“Swinging on a Star” was written for the 1944 movie Going My Way, in which Bing Crosby plays Father Chuck O’Malley. 

A parody of the song was used in the 1945 movie Duffy’s Tavern, again with Bing Crosby. Rather than being a pig, one might be a ham …

I hope Bing found a bright star to swing on!