My mother’s side of the family goes all the way back to Massachusetts in the 1630s. These are the Reeds and the Joneses. My father’s family arrived here in the late 19th century, father from the Azores, mother from Hawaii. My mom’s family made it all the way across the country to Sacramento, my dad’s family arrived in California and stayed here, they had traveled enough, I guess. My mom did a lot of genealogical research but, of course, we have photographs going only so far back. I start with my great grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Jones. This first photo looks right out of an old TV Western.
In the photo above he is holding an axe and a saw, planning a chicken dinner, I suppose. This is somewhere in Nebraska.
My grandmother, Laura Willemina Jones, daughter of TJ Jones, is on the right in the photo above. She attended a teachers’ school and here she is with fellow students. In the next photo she is now Laura Reed, sitting with her new husband, Marion Wilford Reed, he dropped the Marion and was known as Wilford. They were married in 1904.
Grandma Laura. She may be showing off a new cabinet. The doors of the upper cupboard are swung open revealing paper chain cutouts as decoration for the shelves. Cutouts she probably made. I still have the covered dish that is on the middle shelf, second from the left. She is buttering a slice of bread cut from the loaf behind her. Photo printed from a glass negative.
Probably dated 1904 or 05. Laura is seated with her father-in-law Emerson Reed. She would name one of her sons after him. She had another son whom she did not name Thomas Jefferson. This is most likely still Nebraska.
Wilford and Laura in the back. I don’t know who the other two people are I just liked the vehicle. The man at the wheel may be a hired driver, he certainly isn’t dressed as well as the others. This type of vehicle was typical of the models of 1904 so this may have been taken on their wedding day.
Laura and Wilford moved to Sacramento, California and made a life for themselves. They had four children, losing the oldest, Pearl, at age 10 to pneumonia.
The four Reed children: Pearl, the oldest, with the lovely ringlets. Sadly she died of pneumonia at age 10. Next is Emerson. Then Ralpha, my mom, in front with the flower, and the youngest, Preston.
About 1915. Even then you could get your picture taken on a pony.
An old time grocery store. Many of the products are behind counters and the clerks would get them for you. That is my mom, Ralpha, on the far right. I don’t know how the name Ralpha was decided upon.
The Silveira side of the family resided in Pleasanton, California.
My dad’s parents. Manuel Bem Silveira immigrated from the Azore Islands. Beliza Emily Vieira came from a Portuguese settlement in Hawaii. They were married at Mission San Jose in 1890. They had 6 children. 4 survived to adulthood. The eldest, Manuel, died in an accident at age 21.
Manuel, a handsome lad with worker’s hands.
Dad-Edward EmanuelEddy and sister Beliza, known as Bea.
Eddy with new sister Evelyn.Evelyn on the left, then Mary, know as Mae, then my dad, the second youngest but the tallest.
Ralpha and Ed met in San Francisco. Ralpha remembered Ed as the annoying boy who had put his feet on the rung of the back of her chair in class at UC Berkeley. As he was no longer sitting behind her she was able to see there was more to him than his feet.
Photo captured by a street photographer in San Francisco. They had a good time in SF.
They both became interested in photography. I am sure they took these moody pictures themselves. I am not sure if at this time they also began developing their negatives and printing their own photos but it’s a good guess.
Ralpha and Ed moved to Sacramento because of work. For Ralpha, of course, this was back to her home town. They had a daughter, my sister Jeanette (later Foxx). Ralpha was pregnant with me when Pearl Harbor was attacked in December, 1941, and eventually Dad enlisted as a Captain in what was essentially the occupation administrative forces and went overseas, first to North Africa then to Sicily and on to Italy. In 1943, Mom and we two girls went to visit him in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he was finishing his training. Below is Dad in uniform with Jeanette.
And above, the 4 of us. I was about 16 months old and Jeanette 2 yrs, 8 months. The train ride back to California was terrible for Mom as we girls were stressed and ill.
And thus began 3 years of letter writing and photo taking. They wrote each other 5 or 6 times a week and all the letters are saved. Mom makes no mention of procuring a camera and an enlarger so they probably already had this equipment.
Mom not only took pictures of us but of other families as well. She traded hair styling for photos at one point. She would take the photos and develop the negatives and print the pictures. Dad also had a camera in Italy but he could not send home any photo that had a recognizable location in it. And most of the time he couldn’t tell Mom where he was or what he was doing for his work. He sent this one which seems to have been cut to show little else but him.
An example of one of the many photos Mom took and sent to Dad. The camera was probably on a tripod and on a timer. This was probably taken by Grandpa Wilford. He was over at the house a lot working in the victory garden and fixing this and that. The slide and sandbox were in the garage because the Sacramento sun made the slide too hot to use otherwise. They called the car Betsy.Grandma Laura sitting on the steps to our backdoor, our playset in the background. Apparently Grandpa Wilford had just harvested a whole bunch of enormous squash from the victory garden. I cannot imagine what they did with these things.
Christmas cards that Mom made and sent out while Dad was gone.
Dad returned but the camera kept clicking– however I shall stop here.
