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.