A BIT OF FAMILY HISTORY BY REQUEST

I think I was probably in 2nd or 3rd grade before I got a handle on family members and the fact that my parents actually had been babies and also they were somebody's brother or sister.  The light bulb went off in my head and I can still remember that moment of revelation.

Well, I think that bulb went off in my 5 year old grandson's head just recently.  In the last week or so he has asked me what my mommy looks like and where is she.  After I told him that she got really, really sick and died long time ago when I was about 23 years old, he had to process that for several days before asking again what she looked like.  I told him I would find a picture of her and show him, but of course I forgot when we got home.  Being the child and not having the cluttered mind of most of us grownups, the very next time I saw him he again asked what my mommy looked like.  Of course we were busy and not in the place where my pictures were, so this is the first time I have gotten a chance to get the pics out.  So, this blog is really for Baker, but I also think our girls and other grands might find some interesting tidbits of family history too.

This picture is of my mom holding me when I was about 6 months old.  She is standing by my daddy's panel-body work truck that he used for his business - Wagner Electric Service.  After he got out of the Army after WWII he was an electrician.  Then he was a rural letter carrier -  mailman until he died when I was 11 years old.  We are in front of Ford's Ice Cream Parlor which is right across the street from Mamaw Duke's present day house.  The funny thing is that this was several years before the Dukes even built their house.  There was not a house across the street when this picture was taken and  Bop was just a little baby boy living in Alabama. 

The next picture is my dad holding me on the little front porch of our apartment where we lived until I was maybe 5 years old.  My daddy always called my mom Reen.  Otherwise known to everyone else as Irene.  My daddy's nickname was Kenny and everybody called him that, but his real name was Sidney Page.  We named our first daughter Paige after him, but changed the spelling because she is a girl and not a boy.  Granddaughter Sidney is also named for him as well as my Aunt Kate and my sister Kit. 

This is my mom holding me when I was about 1 year old.  We lived in Miley Apartments near Newton High School where Johnny (Bop) and I both would graduate some 18 year later.  This picture was taken in 1949.

This next picture is of my mom (standing behind Aunt Kit) and my daddy's mother who was my Grandma Wagner standing beside me.  Aunt Kit was about the same age Sidney is right now.  Aunt Kit (Betty Kathryn) was named for my daddy's Aunt Kate and now Sidney Kathryn is named or her too.  I never really knew her whole name, Kathryn something Storm.  She lived in Arlington, Virginia and I thought that was so great that she lived somewhere so far away.  The next picture is of her with my dad and mom in front of her Virginia house I think.  I was so impressed because it had three floors and a full basement; a mansion compared to our four room house in the country on a dirt road.  The basement was at the bottom of a long flight of creaky stairs and was dark and shadowy, but Kit and I loved playing down there.  Aunt Kate's maid would talk to us and tell us some really interesting stories while she ironed down there.  I remember visiting only one time, but we stayed about two weeks and everything seemed bigger and better than at home.  Aunt Kate's husband George worked for someone in the national government and they were wealthy in my young Mississippi eyes.

This last pic is of Cheeka, a white German shepard that was my constant companion from the time I was learning to walk until I was about 14 years old.  We had a few other dogs over the years, but none were as close to my heart as Cheeka.

Enough family trivia for now.