Family Treasure

We had visitors yesterday.  My cousin Mary Watland, her husband Steve and their granddaughters spent the afternoon.

Mary is a retired elementary school principal from Western Washington.  She brought along a packet of old photos, sent over the years from my mother to her mother.

Mother and Mary's mother Mary Jane Skelton were college classmates at Nazareth College, a private Catholic college in Kalamazoo, Mich. 

Both moved west and, over the years, we made our family visits back and forth between the Skelton's home in Pasco and the Tibbs farm on North Boyer in Sandpoint.

I'm guessing the photo above dates back to the early 1950s because even my childhood memory of some aspects of the picture is sketchy at best.

On first look, we thought the car was my dad's '49 Ford, so it could have been after Mother and Harold were married in 1954.

As I examined closer, though, I think the car has a Washington license plate so it could have belonged to the Skeltons who may have been visiting at the time.   Just not sure.

I do faintly remember that wood pile in front of the wood shed.  

On first inspection, I thought the horse was Largo, but even in black and white, it looks like a sorrel, as we used to call everything we now term "chestnut."

I'm also guessing this photo possibly could have been taken in the really early '50s after Mother bought the place. 

The granary to the east of the shop, with its step where I sat on summer mornings in the sun,  does not appear to be there. 

And, I don't see much evidence of fences.  Shortly after Mother and Harold were married, fences went up on the place, corrals were built and things were generally spruced up.

We, as a family, worked together on many of those farm improvements, especially when Harold plowed fields for pastures and hay land.  

We picked up sticks and helped wherever little kids could help.  

Such pictures suddenly appearing from out of the distant past are nothing less than treasures, especially as we all grow older and cherish our family history.

I'd say the horses, the farms and the people have "come a long way, baby" since this photo was taken.  Many many chapters have unfolded in that journey.

So, Mary, thanks for bringing the pictures.  

It's fun taking nostalgic journeys backward to what were definitely for all of us "good ol' days" when life seemed a lot simpler. 

Happy Thursday to all.