Long Ago, When Drugstores Were Fun-- Or When Family Looks Like Criminals...
I'm at my mother's house, going through the suitcases of family pictures. I've gone through one box, one box top, and have hit the motherlode in suitcase #1. (There are 8 more to go, and they are bigger...) Matthew is helping me, and we have gotten tickled. Downright lay on the floor, giggling until you're green, tickled. I thought you might enjoy them, too!
Who this is-- This is Uncle Coombs on the right, standing in his pharmacy up in Dayton, OH, with his helper. This is back when drug stores were fun!!!
I want to say this is the late 19-oughts or early 19-teens, but it honestly looks as if the guy on the left has had a bit too much fun mixing up the Coca Cola.
A. Mac, you are not to take the time and/or trouble to restore these, unless you want to use them for something...
Our next picture is of Uncle Coombs children, Earl and Mary, by his first wife, May, who died of pernicious anemia. We have titled this: When Kinfolk Look Like Famous Villains, because Earl looks just like Lee Harvey Oswald to me. I knew Edith and Earl and can suddenly see why Grandma said that Edith was "a bit flighty".
Mary looked just like her mother, poor woman.
Earl was a WWI hero and a WWII hero, so I would like to say that he was a good and brave man, despite his somewhat "criminal" appearance.
I really love this next picture, as it is of my Great Grandpa Scherer, and he is holding the Spencer Repeating shotgun that lives in our gun cabinet. He is also holding up a dead squirrel... Well, nevermind. I bet Grandma Scherer cooked it for him and they had a nice supper.
The Scherer nose is very evident. Grandpa had one, too, and they couldn't drink out of water glasses without tipping their heads back.
Wasn't he a cutie? This has to be from the mid to late 1930s, as he died in 1940. Grandpa Scherer was a farmer and cobbler, so he probably made those boots he is wearing...
The last picture is of me, wearing my Grandma's childhood dress from the 1890s. I was 4, the same age of Grandma when she wore the dress, and the picture was taken in 1959. I found only pieces of the dress in the suitcase...
Not that anyone would find these funny, but us... But we did!
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We also found a letter from Uncle Fred. Uncle Fred was Grandpa Scherer's brother, who was labeled The Smart One, and he moved to Marion, IL to work in a bank. His letter is truly funny, which is why we started laughing... Year, 1929:
Now, maybe this isn't funny to you, but we found it to be VERY funny. The rest of the story: Great-great Grandpa Scherer, Fred's father, lived with Grandpa Scherer and his wife,and my Grandpa and Uncle Louie, until he died. We have his books, his flute, his papers, his furniture, just about every thing. Fred's grandson came all the way down from Chicago, to meet with Mama and I about family history, about 25 years ago. We have long heard the tales of Fred and his children coming to visit Grandpa Scherer, when Grandpa and his brother Uncle Louie, tricked Fred's insufferable children into stepping into the cow pies in the farm yard.
True to form, Fred's Grandson was insufferable. Rude. To the point of needing a knot jerked in him. He wrote a family history that got our side all wrong, with the wrong dates, names, etc. He was very full of himself, and definitely looked down his nose at his country cousins. (He said, "After All, My grandfather was the smart one...")
This letter looked to have been written and sounded to have been written by a moron, and THAT's why we laughed.
I hope you enjoy these pictures! We laughed and laughed and laughed! And not AT them, but with them!
I found it funny too. He had a very wild sense of humor. First, by reducing all descriptions to their simplest form, he makes you think that he isn't very bright; then, with his last description, he turns the whole thing around on you and you realize that he's been messing with your head all along. The best part is that he could get the same effect with total strangers and almost a hundred years later.
I restored all of them for the practice. They only took about a minute each, and the computer did most of it by itself. I'll post them if you want, but I think that, although the restored versions are cleaner and show more detail, the original ones have more character.
The last shot of you is priceless ! You've got the same smile now as you did back then..
The older pictures, with their over-exposed parts, adds to it, I think. I restored some of these on Gimp, to bring out the details. Of these pictures, only Grandpa Scherer means a lot to me, especially since he is holding the gun that I have.
Matthew thinks he looks like Jed Clampet. I just see a cutie!
Thanks, TTGA!
And the same dimples... My hair was blonde, back then-- now, of course a lot of it is gray. And, needless to say, I've put on a little weight. I found a picture of me taken right after I had rheumatic fever. I was wearing a dress that Aunt Lois had made me in 1961, and it still fit, 2 years later. I think I got taller, but with the rheumatic fever, I had a sickly look, and was pipe-cleaner thin.
Funny to look back and see things you never noticed before.
Dowser, thank you so much for sharing these pictures and your very interesting stories.
Thank you! I've filled one 4" notebook and am working on another! Only 8 more suitcases to go! I'm determined to get one done, anyway...
I must say that there are some of us who are rather funny-looking. Me included!
I love old photos! I've found a series of pictures from a train wreck-- I keep finding one or two, here and there, and I'm going to have to sort them out and put them together. A. Mac would love those! The wreck was of an old steam engine, circa 1915...
I can see why my mother was so overwhelmed by them all. I'm still looking for the good pictures of Grandpa Hutch, etc., from the 1880's. I know they're somewhere, but I don't know where. I find them compelling, too-- as well as puzzlers. Who are they? My little Grandma was like the heartbeat of her family-- everyone came to see her, and every time they got together, they took a picture. Her brother and sister rarely got together-- it seems that both of them owned pharmacies, and I guess that their hours didn't "mesh", or something. I've got a whole pile of people I don't know.
Thanks for coming to see me!
I have to agree with you John. I have always loved to look at old photos. It is history captured naturally and I think that is why they are so compelling.
Marsha,
Loved these photos. They are family gems! But you are making me feel very guilty at this moment. My cousin Carol has been asking me, the keeper of the Berlin archive, to go through the photos and sort them out and make copies for everyone... and here you are busy away doing what I should have done years ago. *sigh*
Anywho, wonderful photos. Loved the one with your grand-pa. Was that dinner? And you were an adorable little girl!
I'm so glad that you liked them!!! I love Grandpa Scherer's picture, too-- especially since he is using the gun that I have...
He got more squirrels that day, a bunch of them!!!
Don't feel guilty-- this is a CHORE, in many ways. And, since I can't bear to open closets, yet, I can do this and feel like I am accomplishing something, when I'm not, really...
We were so tired last night, we were slap-happy, and just some of them were so funny! I've got a pile to send to my 3rd cousin, and a pile to send to A. Mac, and a pile labeled, Who ARE these people? (A picture of someone who looks a lot like Fatty Arbuckle, lying the grass on a hill and laughing.)
No, I wasn't, but I loved the dress... I wish it had survived! Funny, how pieces of us don't change, even though a lot of major things do!
Take care!!!
You were a real cutie back then, Dowser. You had a really happy face.
Thank you, dear Buzz! I was a very happy little girl! Uncle Louie had come to visit and I adored him-- such a lovely spring day, all those years ago.
Take care, dear Buzz!
These are fantastic!
I really need to scan more of my family photos. I have some dating back to the late 1800's in southeast MI and the upper peninsula. There are probably some even from my Canadian family in there too.
My favorite has got to be of the one of my great uncle Gordon (aka Uncle Bouncer - he didn't crawl, he bounced across the floor as a baby). He has his hair in a Mohawk in 1928/9!