This is a photo of my mother, on the right, with her parents. It was taken sometime between 1928 and 1931. I don’t know the locale, and there is no one left to ask. It may have been on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where my grandparents often went. It may have been on a ship on a cruise to somewhere. It may have been at a favorite vacation spot, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, where the family vacationed every summer to escape suburban Philadelphia’s heat. I really don’t know. Everyone seems dressed to the nines, a far cry from today’s beach attire. Everyone also seems in a pensive mood. In 1938, three years before I was born, my grandmother died at the age of 61. My grandfather lived until 1970 and died at the age of 95 years, 9 months. My mother’s older sister and two older brothers all lived into their eighties, but my mother died too young at the age of 47 in 1957. Last October I wrote about that day in this post.
[Update, 8/17/2008. After writing the phrase “a cruise to somewhere” and sleeping overnight, I suddenly remembered this morning that among my mother’s souvenirs was a dinner menu from the S. S. George Washington and that one of her happiest memories was having taken a “cruise to nowhere” from New York City that went out into the Atlantic in the direction of Bermuda but made no port calls; it was just several days at sea before returning. Perhaps the photo was taken on board that ship, but I don’t recall my mother’s ever saying that her parents went on that voyage too. Something deep down in my heart of hearts tells me the photo must have been taken on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. I have no idea why they are all dressed up. Perhaps they aren’t; perhaps this was what people normally wore when they went out into public in those days. But notice everyone's spiffy shoes! Aren’t they the cat’s meow?]
