Category Archives: Smith-Webber

Sepia Saturday – Christmas Weddings

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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.

I’m glad that Sepia Saturday is “come-as-you-can” during the holidays as there are a couple of Christmas Day wedding anniversaries I had hoped to recognize but missed the day.

First is the 115th anniversary of the marriage of my paternal great-grandparents on Christmas Day 1897.

Wedding of Myron David Webber to Dorinda Rebecca Strange

Myron David Webber and Dorinda Rebecca Strange were married in the home of her parents, John Sylvester Strange and Susan Nancy Hendrickson, in Lincoln, Kansas. Unfortunately I don’t know who stood with them in the photo.

Myron and Dorinda had a large family of nine children – some of whom I have introduced previously:
John Norman
Abbie Elizabeth (my grandmother – she’s mentioned numerous times here!)
Aaron Ferrel
Geraldine Hattie
Fred Myron
Norrine Belle
Lottie Susan
Dora Ersel
Woodrow Wilson

M. D. and Dorinda celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at First Baptist Church in Iowa City, Iowa in 1947.

Aaron, Margaret, M. D., Dorinda, and Fred Webber

In my grandmother’s photo album I found a picture of some flowers sent for the celebration and of a “wedding cake” – which I assume was also a part of the anniversary festivities.

             

Fifty-five years after the marriage of her parents, Woodye (Woodrow Wilson Webber) married the love of her life, Orville Kessler, on Christmas Day 1952.

Woodye had two children from a previous marriage and she and Orville had three more, but all were Orville’s children. The adoptions took place when the older girls were no longer girls, but quite grown up – a joyous occasion! I don’t have a picture of their wedding, but their daughter Wilda supplied me with these pictures from Woodye and Orville’s 55th wedding anniversary.

Wilda said in her email: “The bells in the 2nd photo are from our grandparents 50th anniversary and if my memory is correct were hung for Mother and Dad’s wedding, Dorinda’s and mine.”

And to bring this full circle, I’ll end with a poem written by Woodye’s and Orville’s daughter, Wilda. The poem evokes a memory of her grandfather, Myron David Webber, on a Christmas morning.

Gift

Rising early,
Grandfather stoked the ashes
of yesterday’s fire,
added fresh coal,
our first gift
on Christmas morning.

by Wilda Morris
From Secret Place (Nov. 1998 – Jan. 1999).
Used with the author’s permission.

If you would like to see more holiday stories from sepia images, visit Sepia Saturday.

 

 

Lost Items, Lapses of Memory, and Not Seeing What is Right in Front of Me

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I found it.

I couldn’t find this picture when I was writing Little Rockers. My pictures are a mess.

Holding Cousin Cherie

And I found this picture of Grandma Abbie after I published Amana Rocking Chairs.

Abbie in her Amana rocker

It was taken when my grandmother had moved to an assisted living apartment. She usually smiled for pictures. I don’t think she was ready.

I’ve been corrected.

When I wrote about My Big Tall Italian Wedding Cake, I made at least one mistake. Dad(Jim) tells me that, although he was already in Odessa, TX at the time of my wedding, Mom and my sisters were still in Clovis, NM, which makes Mom even more of a super mom – driving my wedding cake and my three little sisters the six hours to Waco during the time she was preparing to sell our house and make a move. Dad drove in separately.

And on the subject of faulty memory…. I write many of my personal memories here. I believe them to be true. Maybe they’re not. You might want to read You Can’t Trust Memory! from the Heart and Craft of Life Writing blog.

I’ll just keep writing like I remember it. I hope people will comment or otherwise tell me their version of the story!!!

Here’s the picture to prove it.

The day Dad(Jerry) and I were in Bethel Cemetery, we couldn’t find the headstone for Ann Rutledge’s mother. Dad returned a few months later with cousins Alice and Adele and they found it right off the bat. Here’s a picture they took.

Grave of Ann Rutledge, Bethel Cemetery, Van Buren Co., Iowa

I know I looked on that row. How could I have missed the tall headstone with a GAR marker?

The sun was really bright that day.

Sepia Saturday – One Moment Please

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Launched by Alan Burnett and Kat Mortensen in 2009, 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. 

My Grandmother Abbie was the oldest girl in a large family, and many responsibilities for the care of her younger siblings fell to her. As an older teen, she was eager to find employment to get herself out of the house. Her first job was at a grocery store, then Fuller Brush (I believe this was a store front – not door-to-door sales), and finally the telephone company in Fairfield, Iowa. My Dad says she liked working there and was delighted when she earned enough money to move out and live on her own.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of her working at the telephone company, but I did find this picture of the Fairfield Telephone Co. building which housed a Turkish restaurant as recently as 2009. Not sure of the status today.

Here is a picture of Grandma Abbie talking on the phone…

In an earlier Sepia Saturday post, I shared pictures of the Hedrick Y, near Hedrick, Iowa, where my grandparents owned a truck stop/cafe/grocery store. Most of those pictures were of the original building, but the bird’s eye view was taken after construction of a new building in 1956. My grandparents’ home was in the building that housed their business. When they tore down the business, they also tore down their home.

Since I spent many Saturday’s at the Hedrick Y, the deconstruction/construction site became my playground.

In both pictures, I see what looks like an old wooden crank-style phone near the working phone. It makes me wonder if it was jerry-rigged to provide an extension so they could use the phone without the building.

Don’t be shy – call on the other Sepia Saturday bloggers and see what they have done with today’s prompt.