Lots of families take family pictures. For Lindsay, David, Brady and Eva, it’s a yearly event. They meet with a photographer each fall and have a formal photo shoot. Lindsay is in charge of selecting a location and the crew’s attire. I always look forward to seeing the new batch. It’s a great way to chronicle the kid’s growth and maturation.
Ruth and I have always been the candid photo type. We’ve participated in very few planned shoots. Back when we began our family, photo shoots were confined to studios. We do have dozens of pictures from Kalamazoo’s Olin Mills Portrait Studio. Most are of David and Elizabeth who were born at Kalamazoo’s Bronson Hospital, but one or two, included Ruth and me. The crew at Olin Mills must have access to the birth records at local hospitals, because shortly after the birth of each of our Kalamazoo duo, we received offers for “free” portraits of our newborns. Who can resist “free”?
Michael was born in Adrian. J C Penny must have scoured the records for Adrian births because that’s where Michael’s free portraits were taken. We don’t have as many of him because J C Penny gave up on us more quickly than Olan Mills. We were living on a budget, so we just stuck to the “free”.
None of the pictures are of newborns, but rather a few months later when they were more photogenic. Newborns need time to plump up before they’re really cute.
My Grandpa and Grandma Barner had this picture (left) taken just before they left Kentucky to live in Michigan. They moved when Grandpa lost his livestock to hoof and mouth disease. A drought took the crops as well.
My mom and Aunt Ruth were four and two at the time. Margaret and Harrison were twenty-five. Old Granny Barner, Grandpa Barner’s mom, Minnie Burton Brite was fifty. She stayed behind when the youngsters headed north but was featured in the last Kentucky family portrait.
The family expanded in Michigan with the birth of my Aunt Eugenia, Uncle Harry, and Aunt Mildred. (Millie, Jean, Harry, Kay, Ruth) They spent their first few years on a series of creamery farms in Mt. Clemens but grew up in Detroit when the city was becoming the Paris of the United States. It was a time of great prosperity brought about by the growth of the auto industry.
While the names and faces in family pictures change from generation to generation, their importance remains a constant. They help document our individual histories and provide a link between each one.