Summertime is sitting on the porch reading a book with grandma.
This post actually has multiple levels, none of which really have anything to do with the other.
Sitting as a child in someone's lap as they read to you is one of the great simple pleasures. Turning the pages, feeling the paper between your fingers; all of your senses are at play. Sitting with an iPad or a Kindle is not the same. A book is not a shiny object. You have to invest yourself into a book. Years later you may again find the same book and have the memories come flooding back. Taking it from a shelf and again holding it will for a few moments bring back that flurry of sensations you remember from so long ago.
The book this grandma is reading to her granddaughter is "Kiddie Land" by Margaret G. Hays.
Margaret G. Hays was the sister of Grace G. Wiederseim who became Grace Dayton, creator of Dolly Dingle and the Campbell's Kids.
Margaret is the author of "Kiddie Land" and her sister was the illustrator. You can see the title page to this book here.
Margaret G. Hays, sister of Grace Drayton, was a comic artist in the first decade of the twentieth century. She created 'Jennie and Jack, also the Little Dog Jap', and was also known for making paper dolls for postcards. She sometimes teamed up with her sister, for instance on the strip 'The Turr'ble Tales of Kaptin Kiddo'. (SOURCE: LAMBIEK.NET)
The next part of this post has to do with grandma herself. Does she look familiar? Is this a face that bears some resemblance to...oh I don't know...maybe Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States? Maybe it's just me. I see what I call Time Traveling Celebrities once in a while in old photos. In this case both grandma and Roosevelt are dead so grandma is not exactly time traveling as the two examples below are.
This photo was taken on April 28, 1939 when Roosevelt was in office. And mind you, this is not the first cross-dressing celebrity I've found.
I give you Will Ferrel in drag. Actually, I have no idea who this woman is. She was in my grandmother's album so she might actually be a relative of mine. This photo was originally posted April 30, 2009.
And then there's Matt Damon, originally posted November 21, 2008. I have no idea who this fellow actually is, but I do remember seeing him staring out of a pile of photos and being dumbfounded by the resemblance to Damon.
Really, you just never know who you might see in photos of people you don't know.
And to tie everything up with a piece of broken wire I'll admit that this hodgepodge is my contribution to this weeks Sepia Saturday. The theme was trees. As you can see I'm not even in a broken branch. More like low hanging fruit.
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