Family Reunion in the 90s

Not so many party shots as portraits

 A little photoshopping

Aunt Ann's Birthday

Aunt Ann will be 93 years old on November 5th. She would love it if her nieces and nephews would send her cards. Her vision is poor so something textured might be nice, or a card that plays a tune or a message. She won't be able to read the cards herself (she sees only shadows now), but Bambi can read them to her.


Email me at BBrackman@sunflower.com and I'll send you her street address.

Her daughter Georgi (who used to be Bambi) keeps me posted as to how she's doing. This past year she has moved into a nursing home. She still loves to play the piano. Here's what Bambi wrote in August.

She's slowly adjusting... She likes the staff and they like her (I've been told she's one of their favorite patients).  She's been playing the electric keyboard on a regular basis and "entertaining" the other patients and staff for which she got a certificate of achievement. It's good mental stimulation for her since she can't see to participate in a lot of the other activities they have there, so they encourage her.

Bambi sent a few photos the other day.

When I arrived this afternoon mom was entertaining with Stacy the music therapist (standing). Stacy plays the violin to accompany mom's keyboard. One of the administrative type people told me she would be looking at keyboards this weekend that would be installed permanently on her floor so mom can play anytime she wants. I think it's really nice of them to go to all that to accommodate her.

1939

I still call her Ann because that's what my mother called her,

but I think she uses her full name Anna.

Love Stories: Ann and George

Ann in 1939 at 22

Anna Marie was born in 1917, her mother Anna Marie's seventh daughter. She married George in October, 1942 when she was 24 and he was 30 years old.

In the 1940s, from Jack's box of photos

Bambi says those bikes are still in the garage.

She'd had her eye on him for quite a while. According to Bambi:

They lived a block away from each other in Queens Village. Mom was on 215th St and 89th Ave and Dad was on 216th St and 89th Ave. Mom would see Dad around in the neighborhood. I think she decided at an early age (like 14) that he was the one for her, but she didn't actually "meet" him until July 4, 1935 when she was 17 and he was 23. [Bambi's quotes in blue; Ann's in red.] In Ann's words:

"George lived on 216th and there was a stationery/candy store on 217th and 90th? that all the neighborhood teens hung out at. I used to see him there and liked him. Thought he was the one for me. I went to Walcliff pool with friends on 4th July and bumped into George there. I dove off the high board and bumped into him on the way up. We talked, and he walked me home, and never got away."

1960 - 1965

George carried this photo in his wallet, his favorite picture of Ann. He took it with a timer.

　"Hugh McDougal was a neighborhood friend of George's. Nice looking guy but I had no interest in him, only George. Hugh was walking with me one day on the way home and he grabbed me and kissed me and I slapped him - slugged him really. Hugh protested why I hit him because he saw me on the front stoop at Gracie's house sitting on George's lap. And I told him that that didn't count because I was going to marry George. Hugh asked if George knew that.....I told him not yet. Hugh never bothered me again."

Mom used to say she and Dad rode [the bikes in the photo above] all over Long Island when they were dating. Mom's afraid of bridges and she said one route they used to take they had to go over this wooden bridge - the kind you could see the water below thru the slats - she was scared to death and only for my father would she cross it (walking not riding). Aaahh, the things we do for love.

1945

George and Ann were married during the War in a ceremony in the rectory of a church in Syracuse with sister Vera the family witness. Grandpa was opposed so Ann and George eloped.

Christmas, 1945

George was stationed in Gulfport, Mississippi in 1944 and 1945 and Ann joined him there. They moved back to Queens after the war.

Ann and George and Nancy (another Anna Marie), Christmas 1945

Hats

Bens' sister Edie in hat and outfit 1927

Anna and Aunt Patty in 1945

Going to church one would guess.

Jane about 1952

Pat Bentley, Cele, Barbara and Aunt Ann Dorr

(too bad her hat is cropped out---you know she was wearing one)

1945

Ben's friend Tom Berry and Ben in the top row at the beach with three unidentified hunks---all in headcoverings, in the 1930s.

Cele in 1945

And the most impressive photo in the family album.

Grandma in November 1945 with top hat, cigarette and a bottle of whiskey.

Baby Boom II

Our first authentic Baby Boomer cousin is Nancy Dorr born December 1, 1945. Here she is 24 days old at her first Christmas at the McNally's with parents Ann and George Dorr.

We older cousins are technically of a different generation. There were five of us born between 1936 and the end of World War II. The Baby Boom is defined in several ways. Some say it's people born after the war, which ended September 2, 1945. Others say after January 1, 1946. If you'd like to do your own demographic research email me and I will send you a PDF with a list of the 42 cousins written by Grandma McNally. email: BBrackman@sunflower.com

Baby Boom

Christmas 1945
Jane and Barbara went over these mothers and babies and think the women on the couch are Ann, Dorothy, Peggy with Joan on her lap, Pat and Grandma. On the floor Pat Bentley and Cele with Barbara on her lap (Jane thinks that might be Kay and Steven but Barbara disagrees. He wouldn't be old enough.) The original is quite scratched and has shifted yellow.

Ben was quite a photographer and did a lot of family documentation in the forties and early fifties. Bill Brackman has scanned his photos.