Saturday's clean out and reorganization of the mathom closet revealed a stash of old photos from my maternal grandparents. I already have several of their old photo albums but some of these were new to me.
The photo above says on the back: Taken on trip down the east coast of Florida Dec, 1922.
My grandfather was thirty; my grandmother a few years older, and they'd been married for seven years. Along for the ride were their five-year-old daughter (my mother,) "Father' (my grandmother's widowed father who lived with them,) and a Mr. Quinn, about whom I know nothing. Possibly a friend of Father's?
Notice all the luggage (grips, as my grandparents called them) strapped on the running board.
My grandparents had fairly recently moved from Troy, Alabama to Lakeland, Florida and this may have been their first exploration of the state that was to be their home. The pineapple field they visited must have been a source of amazement. (In later years, after their move to Tampa, my grandfather tended a succession of pineapple plants, grown from the tops of the fruit. And some persevered to bear fruit themselves.)
At Miami Beach. That's my mother in the foreground, watched over by Father. I'm guessing that's my grandmother and grandfather in the background. Presumably Mr. Quinn took the picture.
The last shot is of West Palm Beach. The Florida land boom/bubble (1924-1926) with unchecked development is just a few years away.
A hundred and two years and these lovely scenes are long gone.
7 comments:
Treasure trove! I'm glad they are labelled and you can make such sense of them. I've a lot of tiny family photos too but no clue as to where or who they show.
I love it that you found this and wrote about it.
What a great bit of history of your family and Florida itself! Pineapples must not have become very big in FL! Glad to hear a few grew from the tops of them, which I tried unsuccessfully to do several times! Just fantastic photos!
Wonderful pictures. Do you know what prompted them to move from Alabama to Florida?
Sandy, He had been hired as a bank examiner and his territory was in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. The move to Lakeland gave him a more central base. Eventually he was hired by the First National Bank in Tampa, prompting another move. He ended up as president of the bank. Not bad for a poor Alabama farm boy who never went beyond the eighth grade. After working in a feed store, he did, at some point, borrow money from his landlady to attend a business school.
Not bad at all! Is Josie at all interested in these photos and stories? She may be too young still. Most kids couldn't care less about their family trees, but when they're adults they go online trying to find information they could have gotten from their grandparents. 😄
I enjoy looking at these. What a history they capture.
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