There is nothing forgotten about the faces or place in this photograph, but I felt it was a good picture to share for this week's Sepia Saturday. It is a picture taken of me and my grandfather Diamond Milton Smith on Christmas 1955 in Mt. Vernon, IL when I was two months old. I have always loved and cherished this photo as I have always been told how proud and excited he was of his first grandchild.
Grandpa would have been in his 40's in this photo and it's hard to believe that he was younger than I am today. I was fortunate to have him for so many years and he died in August of 1997. He was not a man to share his feelings, but I always knew he loved me. (And yes, now you can figure out exactly how old I am!) Happy Holidays!
For more wonderful Christmas tales please join us over at Sepia Saturday!
This week's Sepia Saturday prompt relates to music, song, etc and as usually happens I never know where I'm going with the theme and where I'll end up. I remembered that I had a pile of old sheet music I bought on one of my "antiquing" junkets that I had no idea what I was going to do with them, I just liked the way they looked. This particular piece of sheet music is a song I have heard and liked my whole life except I have always heard it sung by one of my all time favorites, Patsy Cline. The words and music are by Pee Wee King, Redd Stewart and Chilton Price, and was recorded previously by Jo Stafford in 1952 for Columbia Records. I have to admit I had never heard of Jo Stafford before today (she was a little before my time) but evidently she was quite famous and had a beautiful voice.
This piece of sheet music was evidently a popular piece with the former owner as you can see by all the pencil marks on the second page. I have no idea what all these notations mean as I know nothing about playing music, I just enjoy the outcome.
According to Wikipedia Jo Elizabeth Stafford (November 12, 1917 - July 16, 2008) was an American singer of traditional American pop music and jazz standards and occasional actress whose career ran from the late 1930's to the early 1960's. Stafford was greatly admired for the purity of her voice and was considered one of the most versatile vocalists of the era. She came from a musical family and was also related to Sgt. Alvin York a famous WWI hero. The article is quite interesting and lengthy - I encourage you to read it if you are interested in the music of this time period.
Here is a great YouTube video of her recording of You Belong To Me with different photo clips of her throughout her career by mr40sfan - she does have a beautiful voice:
For more great musical themes as well as other song-worthy posts, check out this week's Sepia Saturday.
I didn't have any idea what I was going to use for this week's theme at Sepia Saturday "Flight". As far as I know no one in my family ever had any aviation history, no war time aviators, no pilots, no stewardesses, no airplane stories gone bad. However, I do have this one orphan picture I picked up somewhere that I can share. It shows five people, three men and two women in front of a small plane. There is no identification of the people or location and if I had to guess I would date it to be in the 1940 - 50's. It appears to say on the plane perhaps, "Coffeyville Airways Corp or Co." There is a Coffeyville, Kansas Municipal Airport so perhaps it is from this area. Wherever it was these people look happy to and ready to fly!
Please soar on over to Sepia Saturday and check out the other great "Flight" stories from this week!
