Black and White Wednesday

In addition to today's black and white photos,  I also have a few in sepia! Thank you Teri for hosting this fun meme of memories! Sorry it may be picture overload today! I LOVE old photos and their stories. If you do too, you might want to dig out some old pics and join Teri at  Your Friend from Florida!

The photos below are early ones of my Mother and her siblings. 

Baby Betty (Mom)

Sonny, Gerry and Mom

What Granny had written on the back of this pic surprised me as she mentioned the "new members of the family" which Santa had brought! That's funny because when we were kids, Santa was not given credit for Christmas gifts!!!

They lived in Oklahoma City which was where my Granny and Grandad had met and married raising their children there until the fateful decision made by Grandad! When his kids hit those pre-teen and teen years, he decided to whisk them off to the country and away they went to live on a farm in Northwest Arkansas. In his eyes, OKC was no longer a good place for raising kids and he felt they needed to be isolated from the influences of the big city.  (This is my understanding of why the move took place. An unnamed source tells me there is more to the story!)

Mom and her siblings were quite happy living in Oklahoma City and definitely resisted the move, but, of course, the Dad won out. They loved their home in OKC and had so many fond memories of their childhood there. 

Their house

Mom and Gerry on either side of cousin Merle. 

This must have been taken just prior to the move.

The above are photocopies of pictures my Aunt made to put in a scrapbook for Mother when she  was going through some very rough times with cancer. Her family came often for visits with her and my aunt Gerry shared this little poem for Mom's birthday, along with the scrapbook. (She must have spent hours making copies of old photos.)

That old typewriter needed the keys cleaned.

I shared before how after moving to Arkansas and farming, my Grandad's leg was cut off in a mowing machine. He had to leave the farm for several months for treatment and Granny and the kids were left to tend to the animals and the farm. I've seen pictures of them out in the fields with sunbonnets covering their heads as they pitched hay in the hot sun! The work didn't stop for the hard winter either. It was a rough life for them and when Grandad returned with a wooden peg on his left leg, he began a new business delivering dairy products to the locals. 

That is Grandad's mother on the right. She had also left Oklahoma City to live with the family in Arkansas and from what I understand, she literally ruled the roost! I say no more! Great Grandma Sanders was a strict Pentecostal and, in leaving OKC, she was also leaving the church she pastored there. She was quite the feminist way back then, don't you think? A woman preacher?? After the move, she began her ministry as a traveling evangelist.

Here she is holding her Bible, with her "traveling music band!" Ha! The pic on the right is Grandma Sanders with my mom and Viola, Grandma's lifelong companion/servant? Viola was somewhat adopted by my Grandma Sanders when she was 19 and was a faithful helper to her and friend to my family until she died. Viola was a saint and I'm not kidding! Everyone loved her. But thanks to Grandma Sanders, my mother got to travel along with Grandma and her companions and sing in the services where Grandma preached.

Mom's family after Aunt Gerry married

Speaking for myself and my siblings, we are extremely delighted that Grandad made that move to Arkansas because that is where my parents met and married. So very thankful. Life would have been quite different had they not! Gee, I guess it wouldn't be me here typing this.

Do you ever think about that? The miracle of your life? I love that the Bible says God created all things for His pleasure and the fact that I'm here because He wanted me to exist! To think how the choices made by those before us led to our existence is mind-boggling!!!

This photocopy I'm adding as kind of a footnote. It was taken in 1886 and my Granny's mother is the young lady on the left. She did not move with them to Arkansas, but stayed in Oklahoma City. She had come from Kansas to Oklahoma City with her husband and their eight children. He died when Granny was four and Great Grandma Upjohn raised my Granny along with her other children in OKC. Her oldest son worked for the railroad and provided for all the family until others were old enough to work and help. I never knew this Great Grandmother as she died when I was around six. I do remember going to her funeral.

So solemn.

If our friend Viola was a saint, my Grandma Upjohn must have been an absolute angel! Everybody loved her and spoke of her so much over the years, I felt I did know her.

Grandma Upjohn on the left.

Just think,
you're here not by chance,
but by God's choosing.
His hand formed you
and made you the person you are.
He compares you to no one else.
You are one of a kind.
You lack nothing
that His grace can't give you.
He has allowed you to be here
at this time in history
to fulfill His special purpose
for this generation.
-Roy Lessin

"[God] himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; 

and he marked out their appointed times in history 

and the boundaries of their lands." 

Acts 17:25-26