Saturday, April 30, 2011

Weddings, Hats and History

My uncle and aunt, Joe and Marjory Vitale. For other interesting old photographs, visit Sepia Saturday.

Somehow I came to have a photo of my aunt Margie and Uncle Joe's wedding photo. It was during the war years so she wore a suit for her wedding. I always thought I resembled my father's side of the family (not entirely in a good way). And I always thought Aunt Margie somewhat resembled Queen Elizabeth. Perhaps the wrong side of the blanket somewhere back in the family's history??? Anyway, the hats at the Royal Wedding yesterday made me think of this photo. My Aunt Margie met and married an Italian man and converted from Jehova's Witness to the Catholic religion.

This brings up questions in my mind since I never saw or even thought to ask about a picture of my parents' wedding. My mother lost a whole trunk of photos when I was a teenager. A rather wild kitten that I brought home from my Aunt Esther's farm decided to pee all over the garage including the trunk. I wonder what was in there? My mother turned out to be very mysterious person even though I always thought of her as open and friendly. My father never even knew that she and her sister lost their mother as young children and were raised in a children's home in North Carolina.

As far as my father's family, there were eight living children in an Oklahoma farm family. But I have heard that my great grandmother was a stiff English woman whom my grandmother did not like very much. I have a little glass dish that my Aunt Esther said came from my great grandfather's glass factory in England. She said they lost a child on the ship to America, but the little glass dish survived. I have seen only one photo of my grandmother in her later years. It was not very pretty. Her short, dark hair needed washing and she wore heavy black glasses. On her head was a pillbox hat. When I commented on the picture, my Aunt Esther related that my grandmother always said nobody noticed what you were wearing as long as you had a new hat.

7 comments:

  1. Great combination of themes. I see what you mean about The Queen:)

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  2. I never even noticed the Queen's hat but then I was trying to avoid the wedding. Your aunt and uncle make a smart pair, loved his trim moustache,

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  3. I wasn't going to watch the wedding, but it happened to be on TV at the time I got up, and it replaced the news that I usually watch in the morning. I loved the hats. Some of them were beautiful, and some were horrid. The Queen's hat was quite plain and matched the rest of her outfit.

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  4. Lovely photo. Your story is very poignant. You can never have enough photos of your ancestors.

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  5. Love your aunt's hat. So much better than some of those monstrosities at that recent british wedding. Fergies daughters were the worst.
    Nancy
    Ladies of the grove

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  6. My mother also wore a suit for her wedding during the war. I don't think any photos were taken.

    Love your grandmother's saying about the hat! That's a keeper.

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  7. It is just such a photo of the times - as though the 1940s had been rolled up and compressed into a single image. And it makes a great Sepia Saturday post.

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