More memories...

More memories ... from my mom's photo collection...

First up is a couple photos of my dad, with people I don't know.  I'm guessing that these are fellow horticulturists, and that he was there for some sort of meeting – possibly to get an award.  The photos are undated, but from my dad's appearance I'll guess these are circa '00s.

Then there are these three photos of our home being built.  All are dated June, 1953 on the back in unfamiliar left-handed fountain pen handwriting.  The middle one is also annotated (in the same handwriting): “Dilatush’s basement, sub-flooring being put down by Stan and Jim Gulick.”   The first photo was taken from the southeast of the house, looking to the northwest.  You can see the kitchen bay at the far side, and also the doorway to the “root cellar” under our front porch on the right.  The second photo was taken while standing on the northwest corner of the foundation, looking to the southeast.  The prominent walls running left-to-right are actually interior walls in the basement, structural support for the rest of the house.  The doorway in the far wall led to the southernmost (of three) “rooms” in the basement, where my dad had his office and workshop for years, along with the offset printing press he once owned (and I ran).  The joists over that room are actual 2x12s – what we call today “dimensional lumber” that actually measured 2" x 12".  I know this because I installed quite a bit of shelving for my dad in that room.  The third photo was taken from a vantage point just northwest of the house, looking southeast.  The kitchen bay is clearly visible in the foreground, and if you squint a bit you can see that the footers for the interior walls have been poured.

This photo is dated January 1954 by the lab.  It shows our completed home, not long after construction was finished.  That darned fence I don't remember is visible on the right, as is the sidewalk between the front and back entrances.  Don't remember that, either! :)  There's the fancy woodwork on the front porch's roof braces, and one of the two windows in the attic, high on the right.  At that point the house was painted a dark brown.  My father told me, years later on one of our trips, that my mom had insisted on that particular color – but that within a year after it was up she decided it was awful and started agitating for a new, lighter shade.  House paint was too expensive for them to even consider for quite a few years, so it took a while for my mom to get her new paint. :)  Lots of memories triggered by that photo...

Here's one I didn't expect.  On the back, in unfamiliar printing: “Approaching Grinnell Lake with Fall & Glacier in background.  Also the Garden Wall.”, and in my mom's handwriting: “Bear Grass”.  Grinnell Lake was easy to find (map).  There's no date on the photo, and it's on no-name paper so I have no clues from that.  Bear Grass we know well; it's common in the northern Rockies, and is spectacular when it appears in dense groups like this.  Anybody have a guess as to who took this, and why it might be in mom's collection?