Poor Wordless Wednesday
Posted by oh amanda on January 9th, 2008 . Filed under: family, me, photography, photos, wordless wednesday .
The girl in the middle is my great-grandmother, Hazel about 1920.
This picture is completely interesting for several reasons–their clothes, the proximity of the 2 houses in the backgorund, the babies’ clothes and the little bike (or is that a stroller) on the sidewalk.
But what makes it really interesting is what my great-grandmother wrote on the back, “poor dressed people”. Isn’t that strange? Why did she write that? Was she poor and hated that picture? Or were the others poor and she did not normally hang out with them? I just think that is so odd. I’d love to know the story behind this picture.
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January 9th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Wow! That’s a great picture. I love old pics. I would love to hear the story too behind the picture and words. Interesting!
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January 9th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Now, that thought is in my head…I am wondering too what’s the story behind the picture…
I love old photos!
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January 9th, 2008 at 9:22 am
That is curious! That would actually drive me a little nuts wanting to know what the deal was.
And those houses are so close together!
Neat picture. You have so many of them.
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January 9th, 2008 at 9:23 am
That is such an interesting picture!!! Looks like some of my grandma’s pictures!
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January 9th, 2008 at 9:27 am
What a great picture!
There are a couple of other options your great-grandmother might have meant…
1 – she could have meant to write poor(ly) dressed people. I’m not sure whether that would apply to her thinking or not
2 – maybe they were dressed up more so than usual and she was bemoaning that fact.
*shrug*
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January 9th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Hmmm… well maybe the girls on either side were poorly dressed to her? Looking at her hair especially you can see she is very well groomed and the others look messy. Maybe poor meant messy not “poor”… ? Great picture!
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January 9th, 2008 at 9:43 am
What a treasure! I love seeing old photos like this
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January 9th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Beautiful photograph. Makes me want to dig out my old ones.
Happy WW!
My Wordless Wednesday #6: Which Bond does it better?
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January 9th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Very interesting Picture. BTW, My husband is 32 going on 13
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January 9th, 2008 at 11:04 am
That is interesting! Now I’m curious.
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January 9th, 2008 at 11:23 am
I remember the way my grandmother spoke and if she said that, she would have meant that they were “dressed poorly”. She was likely making a comment as to the fact that they didn’t look their best when they got their picture taken, which was not a very common thing to have done. People used to dress up even for a snapshot in the front yard.
I love scouring old photos for the details of people’s life. Just found this photoblog you might enjoy of pictures all taken prior to about 1940.
Its here:
http://www.shorpy.com/
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January 9th, 2008 at 11:45 am
their clothes don’t look like the clothes of poor people. But wow, were they ahead of their time! many decades later there would be the baggy era known as the late 80 & early 90s… So sad…
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January 9th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
I think Hazel is like my great-grandmother Edna (and like me & you). They both speak their minds so I think she meant this is me w/ the “poor dressed people”!! That was just her adjective to describe them:)
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January 9th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I love vintage photos. This one is great.
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January 9th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Very cool photo and I’m like you wondering what the story behind the picture is.
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January 9th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
What a treasure though.
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January 9th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
I also love old pics…I have just spent my whole day scanning pics from when I was a kid, because they are degrading and I don’t want to lose them….
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January 9th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
what an awesome memory to have, weird, but awesome!
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January 10th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Very cryptic! I’m intrigued.
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January 10th, 2008 at 9:01 am
That is a great picture. If you ever do find out what it means, please do share.
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January 10th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
The similarities of the girls in your family is just amazing!
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January 12th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I think it’s cute how all three “big” girls are each holding a baby. It looks like they were having a sweet time together.
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January 13th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Love this photo. Oddly, such strange things are written on the back of our family’s really old pics, too. Who knows? I think it’s a self-deprecating thing so that you don’t appear to be all uppity for having your picture taken. It wasn’t as common then as now.
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January 13th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
For some reason, I’m getting the duplicate message already posted, except I didn’t already post–trying again: Love this photo. Oddly, such strange things are written on the back of our family’s really old pics, too. Who knows? I think it’s a self-deprecating thing so that you don’t appear to be all uppity for having your picture taken. It wasn’t as common then as now.
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January 26th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Two days ago I finally found my great grandfather’s old Danish Bible again. I put it in a “safe place” right? And forgot where. Duh. Anyway, several small photos were tucked in the Bible and no one had ever tried to read it since my Grandma (his youngest daughter) passed away in 1958. My folks gave me the Bible because they know I love all of the “old stuff.” The photos are from 1862–at least one of them, of my ggparents when they were both 20 y/o. Grandma told me that “the prince” of Denmark wanted to marry her mother but was not permitted to because she was not a royal. I’m glad ggPa married her!! Those photos are priceless to me. Each is imprinted on the back by the photographer and their size is in metric, so that only a Victorian-era album correctly displays them. You photo and mine are truly treasures to keep and pass on to the next generation.
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January 26th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Oh, I forgot to put in the previous note that I think the vehicle you see in the background is a covered baby stroller or buggy. The woven wicker was very popular in that era for infant buggies or prams.
n.kateus babystrollers.pepperminx.com
PS: And I found the precious photos mentioned above when I was trying to read the old Bible, seeing how similar Danish seemed to be to German–which I’ve tried to teach myself.
n.k.
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