Sign of Spring

 Copyright © 2007, Andrew Stark. All rights reserved.

I’ve caught spring fever and thought it was about time to post a photo of one of the signs of spring at our house.  We’ve no trees in bloom, no lush green grass, no bright coloured tulips, but we do have this. Those who want to see the beauty in closer detail can click on the photo for a larger view.

 

And in case you haven’t seen photos of the Landcruiser previously, it’s supposed to look like this.

 

Copyright © 2006-2007, Andrew Stark. All rights reserved.

 

Yep, it’s spring in the Yukon, when green turns brown.

Saturday's Old Photo

These are Carl and Avas Carlson, relatives of my father, who ran a little Brethren in Christ Mission on the southside of Chicago. This photo is from the the early 1960s, and it’s one of those little photo cards that missionaries give out.

 

On the back of the photo this is stamped in red ink:

 

BRETHREN IN CHRIST MISSION
6033 S. Halsted St. - Went. 7122
CHICAGO 1, ILLINOIS
CARL J. CARLSON, Pastor 
SUNDAY SERVICES 9:45, 11, 7, AND 8
WEDNESDAY SERVICE 8:00 P.M
YOU ARE WELCOME !  

 
I remember Avas as a pale, quiet, unenergetic woman. That’s how she was during the three years that my family lived in the Chicago area and we attended church at the mission. According to my mother, there were quite a few days that Avas couldn’t get out of bed because she wasn’t feeling well. 

A few years after this photo was taken, Carl died. What did Avas do? She started her second life. She began playing her harp again and went all over giving concerts until she was well into her eighties and maybe her nineties. No more days in bed for her.

You might think from those details that was unhappy with Carl, but I don’t think so. I think she was unhappy with life in a dark and dingy flat above a storefront mission in a very rough area of Chicago.

Avas didn’t die until 2001 when she was 107 years old. 

Saturday's Old Photo

I mentioned earlier this week that I’d had a couple of interesting visitors to my old blog. Yes, this week I received  emails from a couple of previously unknown (to me) cousins, Cliff and Ken Melvin, who happened across the photo of my grandfather’s family that I posted back in January. Cliff Melvin is the son of my grandpa’s sister Virgie, who is sitting down in front next to her brother George.

 
Here’s what I wrote about the photo back when I first posted it: 

My grandpa, Ira Deckard, is on the far right, next to his mother, Mary Hepsibeth Deckard … and then his father, John Wesley Deckard. The rest of the group are my grandpa’s sisters and brother: Virgie and George in the front, with Effie, Ethel and Rosie in the back. I’m guessing, by the age my grandpa looks, that this photo was taken sometime in the 1930s. The family is standing in front of my great-grandparent’s home in rural Missouri.

 I learned a little more about the photo from Ken Melvin:

The picture was taken in Grovesprings, MO - early 50s?- shortly before your great grand father died. John Wesley was known as Bud and his wife as Hep.

I was wrong about the date of the photo, then. That means that not only was this picture taken taken shortly before my great grandfather died, it was taken only a few years before my grandpa Ira passed away in 1955. Bud and Hep, they were. I’m glad to know that, too.

The photo on the left is of my grandpa Ira Deckard alone. My mother’s label on the back says she thinks this was also snapped in Missouri. He was, I think, quite a bit younger in this photo than he was in the photo above. If you click for the larger view, you’ll see that Grandpa Ira is wearing long johns under his overalls, and that he has the same piano fingers that my mother inherited and passed down to my oldest daughter and my youngest son. Do you suppose any long lost cousins have piano fingers, too? 

One of the bonuses of blogging: You never know what you’ll learn or who you’ll meet. 

Update on Thursday, May 3, 2007 at 8:29AM by rebecca

A little more information from Ken Melvin:  The year is more likely 1946 or 1947, and the one my mother identified as Effie is really Lena.