family photos

The Crimson

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Pictorama swerves over into an unexpected direction with this portrait of a sincere young Harvard man posing in his football uniform, peeled from an old cardboard frame I think. Unlike our muscle bound behemoths of today, this fellow looks a tad spongey by our current standards. A quick read on the subject (I probably don’t need to assure you that I am not a historian of long-standing on the history of football at Harvard) reveals that he probably represents a time of Harvard’s early hay day in football. The football program is one of the oldest in the country, beginning competition in 1873, and dominated from about 1890 to 1919. I would guestimate, looking at his attire, that this gentleman slips in around 1920. Harvard did in fact win the Rosebowl in 1920 – their only appearance ever. They had three undefeated seasons, ’12-’14, and perfect seasons in ’12 and’13. Seems like it has largely been downhill from there.

I purchased this photo in a fashion I rarely have access to these days, a nice deep drawer of old photos, well curated, at a store in New York’s East Village, Obscura and Oddities, where I spent a nice bit of my recent birthday happily digging around. Utterly out of my usual realm of collecting, it appealed to me because of his sincere and almost diffident expression. It is hard to imagine him slugging away at his opponents on the field, easier to imagine him assuming a life in banking which is probably what he ultimately did, but perhaps not fair to make assumptions. Again, by today’s standards, his attire seems utterly inadequate for the game as we know it today. Clearly it was a different game and another time and a day when a Harvard man could expect to exceed on the football field as well as in playing the game of a privileged life.

Personally, I didn’t find and embrace my inner jock until relatively recently. Although I did yoga for decades, it wasn’t until about six or seven years ago that I started working out with a trainer and became a devoted gym rat. My sister, Loren, was however always a great athlete. Tennis, running, swimming, skiing – sports for every season. She’d swim in the morning and bike in the evening, lift at lunch and run later. A truly restless and peripatetic soul, we as her family always joked that she didn’t need more than four hours or sleep a night and would drive you nuts if she didn’t burn off energy every day. I mostly remember her running cross country and track and swim team at the beach club in the summer, but there was tennis, field hockey and soccer teams too. (In high school she always wanted to lifeguard in the summers and passed the test, but her severe astigmatism disqualified her.)

As an undergrad at Princeton she discovered rugby and she reveled in it. I visited once and saw a game and, although I kidded her about being mud covered and with bloody scrapes from contact with some gargantuan woman’s poorly shaven leg, I got it. There was a visceral delight in the game and the team was a great group. It wasn’t for a number of years after Loren died that I started working out and developed a passion for it. I had always been the one with a paintbrush in my hand rather than breaking a sweat, so I think she is probably somewhere getting a pretty good chuckle out of seeing middle aged me doing one legged squats and swinging kettle weights these days.

Dashington’s

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This card is unused and has no writing on the back. A quick Google search tells me that until 2015 one could visit some incarnation of Deer Forest Park, which appears to have been a roadside family-run attraction with kiddy rides and petting zoo. I could not find a date of origin for the park, although an article about the demise of the park and advertising the auction of the then remaining property – most of the rides were sold at the time of that article, including a train that must have run through the park which many people speak lovingly of – referred to its heyday as the 1940’s. I would say that Dashington’s seems to belong to that era, if not earlier. At the time of the sale, June of 2015, the animals had all been purchased by an animal group which raised the money in a GoFundMe campaign so they would not be auctioned or euthanized. They were looking for homes for animals including: horses, a pony, a tree frog in a tank, a 15-foot python, a 5-foot iguana, one emu, peacocks, 12 chickens, three wild Mongolian Asses, a British Labrador dog and a cat. (Evidently the Mongolian Asses were especially hard to place as they chew through all fence board.)

Of course my card belongs to the time when such small parks and attractions made up the bread and butter memories of many summer tripping families for decades, as the family vacation by car became the preferred post-war pastime. The fact that it is black and white makes me think it is perhaps a bit earlier – all of the other images I found online were in color.

Deer Forest At Paw Paw Lake Coloma

Early postcard, not in my collection

 

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Postcard collection Pams-Pictorama.com

 

I doubt that the remaining cat and dog which needed homes were descendants of my crew here, although you never know. You will note the sign on the wall only promises Dogs and Cat. It took me a long time looking at this photo to find that single cat – up on the highest platform, white with dark cow-spots and wearing a harness. It is impossible to see for sure, but I can almost detect what I call piss-cat ears of annoyance on the fellow. The fact is, we all know cats don’t train especially well and do not appear to enjoy it. While dogs seem to like the interaction and having a job, with cats at best it seems to be a treat filled system which involves an uncomfortable level of coercion. (You may remember a post that provides an even earlier glimpse into the world of trained kitties, Mad Jenny.) Still, in my imagination somehow I persist in seeing glorious Busby Berkley type cat performances – glittering collars and dozens or more happily dancing kitties – with me as the mistress of ceremony, wearing my circus-girl costume, right in the middle of it all.

 

The Wigwam

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In my collection Pams-Pictorama.com

 

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: In the course of my persistent (some would even say relentless) searching of photographs for my collection, I occasionally stumble on one that is entirely outside of my area of interest and collecting, but thoroughly captures my imagination. If it isn’t too outrageously hard to get I will add it to the Pictorama holdings. This card wins on two counts – there is something shining and glittering about the light in the trees that caught my attention, and I have always had a fascination with the idea of staying in vacation cabins and these wigwams would definitely have won me over. As I sit and write this on a snowy January day in New York City, the mind drifts to hot summer days and fantasy vacations in places like Maine. The reality is that Kim and I do not drive and generally speaking do not vacation away from home, but fantasy is the key word here. For the record, the postcard is unused and The Wigwam was neatly inscribed by hand.

Many years ago I did in fact stay in a bungalow (although not of the wigwam variety) in Maine, on my way to attend the wedding of friends. My then boyfriend and I were torn between finding it charming and being faced with a certain musty, buggy reality. It is my only experience in one. It did not dim my theoretical interest in them however. I do not think I ever mentioned that growing up we also did not travel on vacations as a family. From what I hear such trips were mixed bags of great and awful memories, but I really have none. My father was a cameraman for ABC news and traveled constantly so vacation for him (and therefore for us) was spent at home at our house on a river inlet and within walking distance of the beach and the Atlantic ocean, a boat or two moored off a dock in the backyard. Growing up in a beach community we were not deprived in the least. (My childhood summers are an endless string of sparkling days at the beach strung together in my memory.) However, I have few childhood memories of long car rides and family vacation hotel stays of any sort with the exception of visits to family which usually resulted in staying with them. Somehow I don’t see my parents as the types to embrace ancient bungalow holidays anyway, and I have little doubt that my sister, brother and I would have torn each other to shreds trapped in a car together.

Perhaps my apparent adult disinterest in traveling on vacation is rooted in this lack of childhood family vacations. It just wasn’t a habit I formed. I have traveled to far flung places – Tibet twice, Patagonia, much of Europe, but I have never plunked myself down on a beach in another state or country on vacation, and it has been decades since I have been on so much as a random weekend away for the sheer novelty. In reality I travel more on business these days than I manage to for pleasure. Much like my father, vacation has come to mean time with Kim and the kits here in glorious Manhattan, reveling in the novelties that Deitch studio and Pictorama have to offer.

 

Cat Chair Photo Sleuth

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Frankly, there are mysterious things that go on with photo purchases I will never understand, and one stumbling on the weirdness of finding photos that must have started life together, or in some sense hail from the same source, and end up being sold by entirely different entities. I have examined this phenomena once or twice before, most memorably in The Mysteries of Felix where several tiny passport size photos of people wearing a Felix mask came to me via different sellers at very different times. In this case I recently purchased the photo above of this toddler in a cat chair – which I happen to think is remarkable enough with that great cat chair. However, it is also amazing that while I purchased this photo from a seller on eBay, located in Maryland (for less than $10) the other, which went on sale at the same time as mine did (was listed at $35) and is being sold by someone in Indiana. My photo has been slipped out of its stand up cardboard frame, long lost no doubt, while the other one still sports its display frame. While there is nothing about the cat chair that allows us to positively identify it, I think the carpet both are set upon is distinctive enough to tell us it was the same photo studio set. I have put them together below so you can see them side-by-side.

Cat Chair Photo, collection Pams-Pictorama.com
Cat chair image not in my collection

 

If the cryptic writing on the back of my card means what I think it does, my card also originated in Indiana. Here it is below and very hard to read, but look at the bottom, Evansville, Ind.

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Back of photo, Pams-Pictorama.com collection

 

For what it’s worth, I think the kid in my photo is the more winning of the two by far, and meanwhile who wouldn’t be charming perched in a nice cat chair like this one? I have never seen a chair like this before – in a photo or as an object. I reminds me in design of the ashtray stand I have below which I have written about in one of my most popular past posts, Wooden Novelty Co.

 

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Blackie with the cat ashtray holder, Pams-Pictorama.com

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Pip Chair, sadly not in my collection

The chair also seems to be something of a kissin’ cousin to the chair the Pip (of Pip, Squeak and Wilfred fame) chair I was unable to purchase in Close Quarters a few weeks ago. It is my assumption that all of the above were designs that could be purchased and executed by the ambitious lay person – however like the photo in Wooden Novelties, could also be purchased fully finished as well. And yes, space or no space, I would snap this cat chair up in an instant given the opportunity!

I assume we will never know the story of these photos, to what degree they belonged together and wandered away from each other. I imagine that there was some sort of a sale where they were purchased by different dealers and turned over on eBay by coincidence at the same time. What we do not know is if the connection is closer – were these siblings and was it an estate sale they came from? I am a bit regretful that they will part company, but they will at least coexist for awhile longer on this blog post.

 

A Very Felix Christmas

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Card not in my collection

 

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Christmas is hard on our heels and how better to roll up our sleeves than these two amazing photos of epic toy hauls under a glittering tinsel-wrapped Christmas tree? (That’s back when tinsel had some heft and you would reuse it each year – and the cat always wanted to eat it, but that is true of tinsel today too.) Unjust as life can be at times, I was beat out for one of these cards on eBay so they have now gone their separate ways after all these years and I am pleased that at least this electronic record keeps them united. Admittedly, I put a slightly higher bid on the one I purchased as Felix plays a larger role, and I thought the composition was marginally better.

At first I thought that these were two different children and even that one might be a boy, but looking at them for a bit I have decided that it is the same little girl in both. The bonanza of toys has been arranged differently and as I mentioned, Felix gets more of a close up portrait shot in mine. The little girl also seems more engaged with her loot in my photo too. Kim speculated that the toys and scene are all props which is sort of heartbreaking if true. How could they possibly plunk a child down among all that and then yank her away? Oh no! Talk about childhood trauma. I prefer to believe that these were taken post gift opening at home.

I believe our man here is a Schuco Yes No Felix and you could move his tail and his arms (and maybe head?) would move. I came close to purchasing one earlier this year, although he no longer has his movement. (A toy-minded friend told me that it was silly not to buy him since he personally hadn’t moved the arms on his Yes No Felix in years and I was unlikely to miss it.) Perhaps I will find him under my tree one day.

The patina of photo tricks notwithstanding, the sense of childhood wonder on Christmas morning is well captured. Although my memories of childhood Christmas tend to blend together a bit, certain bits and pieces of memories do stand out – my first bike one year (pink and white with a basket), a house for Barbie another, the acquisition of Squeaky the stuffed dog. (I cover some of this in my prior posts found at A Girl and Her Toys and Felix on an Outing.) While my parents have always been big on reading (I swear my younger brother was so frustrated by how much reading went on in our house that as a pre-schooler he memorized the books read to him in a form of faux-reading, and then immediately mastered the skill upon entering school; he was reading the New York Times in no time) so books were always a part of Christmas. However, my folks were not overly intellectual about toys and were easily maneuvered into purchasing us all sorts of indulgent toys of the day. I had an Easy Bake oven and my Barbies lead a very upper middle class life with clothes, homes and cars. They dated GI Joe as well as Ken and a strange doctor doll. And of course there were stuffed animals – as recently examined in Toy Cat. We had racing cars and trains – even before Edward was born. My father did not discriminate. All this to say, I am not someone who collects toys because she was deprived as a child.

Here I am with Squeaky, a photo I have shown before. Although I remember my father taking photos every Christmas morning, I do not have any others at hand. A Merry Christmas to all and let the Christmas toys begin! I know I am hoping for a certain Felix toy this Christmas myself…

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A very little Pam and Squeaky the Dog on Christmas morning, Pams-Pictorama.com

 

Flat Felix Photo Finale, Installment 3

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Pictorama Collection, Pams-Pictorama.com

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As of the writing of this post, this third photo postcard of someone posing with a full size two dimensional Felix is the last in my collection. The Felix in this one bears a remarkable resemblance to the second one I wrote about – a variation on the tongue out, lascivious looking Felix. (If you missed the December 10 post it is here Blackpool, Felix Cutout Continued). As I predicted in that post, it makes for a very strange photo with a child. This little girl seems either dumbfounded or, more likely, terrified of him. She is holding the end of his tail in a rather unconvinced fashion – you can just imagine someone telling her to hold onto him, and his tail being the closest and safest seeming piece to hold onto. Scrawled on the back in fairly childish handwriting is the name, Margaret Bettell-Wilkinson.

If you look carefully, an entire amusement park has been painted into the background. There is something which resembles the base of the Eiffel Tower, although maybe they were just aiming for some sort of ride. There is a Ferris wheel and these sort of exhibition hall style buildings – I wonder if this was a specific park they were painting? Perhaps the one the photo studio was in or near. There is that fence with its very forced perspective as well and whatever went on below and above it which is too dark to tell.

The little girl, Margaret we will assume, could be considered a bit woebegone under any circumstances although to some degree as you look at early photos of children, if they are not really dressed up they tend to look tatty by our standards today. I think people in general had fewer clothes and kids wore them hard. This little girl does have a nice beret on and a sporty coat. I think it is her skinny, bare legs and droopy socks, combined with her effort to put some space between her and Felix, that makes her look at bit sad. Fair to say, at least in this context, Margaret is just not a Felix fan!

While one might think that perhaps photos where people are not at their happiest or best do not end up being saved, this just isn’t true. We all know this. Oddly, we hang onto all the photos of our loved ones in the end. A photo of someone, a pet, or something else you care about is hard to throw out even if they look funny or it is a bit blurry. It is even hard to delete these on your phone – where you know all those photos are piling up and you get constant warnings about storage being full. This is a fortunate part of human nature for the photo collector like myself, but the bane of the organized and the squeezed for space. Still, once a photo was made into an object like this wonderful postcard, you could never throw it out – even when your now 35 year old daughter comes home and says you should get rid of that thing. I am so very relieved no one listened.

Christmas Greetings From All

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This photo caught my attention for a certain kind of crystal clear beauty and atmosphere. It is timeless and I was somewhat surprised to realize it was sent on Christmas Day, all the way back in 1909. The message, in a clear beautiful hand, reads, Christmas Greetings from all at “560 Beech.” It is not signed however and it is addressed to Mrs. Harry S. Additon, Dover, New Hampshire. It was sent from Manchester, New Hampshire (I believe, although the state is a bit hard to read where the stamp is canceled) and sent at 12M – midnight? Midday?

It looks like a lovely porch and we are ready to have a look out the telescope and curl up in the chair with a good book. No sign of winter either (there is snow out my New York City window as I write this mid-December) and the evergreens are no indicator as to the time of year. Of course, just because this was mailed on December 25 doesn’t mean it wasn’t taken earlier in the year, and we can’t be sure. Kitty seems very relaxed on his perch for winter in New Hampshire however. (And yes, in 1909 it appears you could mail something on December 25!)

There is nothing like a good porch for sitting on. My grandmother had a splendid one and it is probably the only porch I have had the pleasure of spending any real amount of time on. It was deep and shaded, and the heavy wooden chairs rocked. There was a small table had a red basket made of a thin woody material placed in the middle of it – perhaps with a pumpkin or holding some gourds in the fall. The arms of the chairs were big enough to hold a sweating, heavy glass of ice tea (for the adults) or sweet lemonade (mostly for the kids). There was a bird in the large, old, leafy trees which provided additional shade on a hot summer day, and an old tree stump that held a potted geranium. A whirligig too, but in all fairness I can’t remember if you could see him saw his wood from there or if he was around the other side of the house. That porch was a universe to small kids like me and my sister circa 1970 or so.

My grandmother’s house was on the corner lot of a fairly busy street in a small town, several towns over from where we lived. It was the house my mother grew up in, for the most part anyway, there  having been another when she was very little. (She showed us that house and a candy store had opened in it – fascinating!) My grandmother’s was a neighborhood that still had sidewalks, entirely residential and people did walk by and sometimes they would say hello, mostly not. The back porch was a place where my grandmother could see everything going on in her neighborhood and be seen. There was sometimes a wave from her neighbors, especially her friend Elaine on the opposite corner, across the street. She was a stout woman and she’d say how big we kids were getting. It was the kind of porch that made you more or less the unofficial mayor of your neighborhood, news central.

The porch in this photo is a more private one – shaded like my grandmother’s, but out in the country. This one is for communing with nature and contemplating it, watching birds at their business and spotting the occasional fox or badger, daydreaming. It is a country porch, not a suburban one. Both have their own charms. Funny how it has made me think of long ago summer and fall, but not Christmas and winter. Not yet!

 

 

Let the Toys Begin!

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: With Christmas rapidly approaching we at Pictorama are focused, as we so often are, on toys. Today is this splendid pedal car and nice, extra large, jointed Schoenhut Felix which appear to be the property of the toddler labeled Paul Shirley. There is no date and no writing on the photo, except the name near the top.

In some ways this is a timeless photo – or at least considering the toys within a certain period of time, between about 1925 and 1940’s. (Although the type of photo print places this firmly in the latter decade.) It is an extraordinary pedal car owned by Master Shirley. Built solidly like a tank, this toy car looks like it might weigh in at the poundage of a real car today. There is a vague farm vehicle utilitarian design about it. Felix is atop – helping to direct the operation no doubt. Despite the somewhat down at the heels nature of the yard shown, this is a pretty lucky kid toy-wise. One has to imagine that this was an expensive toy car – although I might also consider that it was home constructed. Is that possible? Quite a feat for someone if true, well beyond the average soap derby model.

Was Felix a favorite toy I wonder – or did he end up perched there for other reasons? There is a motometer or hood ornament on this car – sadly it does not appear to be the Felix model – the Felix toy makes me think of it. I have included a very nice example here from a Hake’s sale below in case you are not familiar with this item – I have never had the chance to buy one with nice paint on it like this. I do dream of living in a time when cars were decorated with Felix however – talk about jolly!

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Felix hood ornament, not in my collection

 

As children we all seem addicted to movement and locomotion at an early age. Funny that as tots we immediately want scooters, tricycles, bikes, roller skates, ice skates, sleds and toy cars. Why is that? Nothing like the sight of a bike under the Christmas tree or with a birthday bow to wind you up. We love the movement and speed – a taste of independence perhaps. You started dreaming of the adventures you’d have the moment you saw them. Paul actually seems a bit young and overwhelmed by his toy good fortune – or at least indifferent.

I have a vague memory of a bright red trike early on, but my purple and white two wheeler is the one I really remember. Never owned roller skates, they were not in fashion then I guess. I have very fond memory of sleds, first a wooden one with runners and later a metal one, a sort of flexible flyer, that especially pleased me. Sadly we lived near the ocean where snow did not accumulate and we rarely had very good sledding. We made up for it however with bodies of water that frequently froze for skating – a small pond near our house that froze easily, as well as two rivers that also occasionally froze for our ice skating pleasure. I hope Paul grew to love his toy car over time – not to mention his nice Felix toy – and remembered them both fondly.

Blackpool, Felix Cutout Continued

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Posing with Felix at Blackpool, Pams-Pictorama.com

 

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  Devoting ourselves further today to the ever-important work of discovering and discussing Felix the cat photos! This is the second in a three part series of photo postcards taken with a wooden, handmade Felix. When you think about it, despite having to find someone to draw and paint Felix freehand, it was a much smaller investment and less of a commitment than the life-size doll, took up less space in the studio too. Still, a general sense of jolliness prevails.

Here we have a card which is a recent acquisition of mine taken of these two roguish fellows having a holiday in Blackpool, England. (It was never sent and nothing written on the back, therefore I am taking the seller’s word for the fact it was taken in Blackpool.) There are fewer of these photo postcards where Felix is merely a board cut-out to be posed with – or were fewer saved for me to find? While they may not offer the glory of the larger than life-size stuffed Felix at the seaside, someone was still having a mighty fine time posing with him while on holiday. I scooped this one up on eBay, what appeared to be minutes after it having been posted in England as a buy it now. Didn’t even have to wait for an auction. It was waiting for me.

Without any real firsthand knowledge, it appears that Blackpool is a holiday spot which may be a working class, distinctly family oriented holiday locale. A quick look online shows Blackpool on the seashore and sites that rent houses and RV’s and continues as a resort today. Despite their suits, these fellows look less prosperous and less devil may care than last week’s subject in Felix Photo, the Cut-outs, Part 1, and the painted background is also less evocative and interesting. This Felix offers his arm, just like that one, however these guys aren’t having any of that. Unlike that Felix in his happy dancing pose, this one is a bit lascivious. (What’s with the tongue Felix? Can we really imagine small children posing with him?) In fact, these gentleman stand behind Felix as if they are friends of his, taking him home after a long night at the pub, before he can really get himself in trouble. However, here these gentlemen are, in suit and tie – handkerchief and hat for one – posing for the camera; their holiday visit recorded for us to consider, barreling on toward a century later.

In closing, just for the heck of it, I am including a link to a 1920 Felix cartoon, The Circus to help put you in the high mystic mood. It has lots of mice and one of them even does the Felix dance!

Feathers, the Fat Cat

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As you can see Feathers is a robust fellow and at 40 pounds an extraordinarily large one. Unlike most fat cats, Feathers seems to wear his weight handsomely and is well proportioned. I have a soft spot (so to speak) for cats with spotty noses and this further endears this guy to me. Interesting, an idle online search on Feathers turned up a fellow blogger (Another Enormous Cat with a Postcard of His Own) who owns this card, but with the added bonus that the writing on the back reveals that the people had actually visited Feathers, then 19 and up to 46 lbs. Go Feathers! Sadly, my card is postally unused without a great tale.

It is impressive that Feathers not only worked his girth up to more than 40 pounds, but also lived to a ripe old age. While my cat Zippy made it to 20 – with diabetes and other issues, and my mother has had several cats live into their 20’s – one would think that the size of the cat would have shortened his lifespan. (I can’t imagine the lecture one would get from a vet today.) Somehow Feathers managed to figure out how to have his cake and eat it too! One wonders if he was already rotund as a kitten as we will assume he was given his moniker of Feathers at a young age.

Longevity among cats seems to be on the rise and it now seems unusual if a cat doesn’t live into its late teens at least. Kim has pointed out that cat life was cheaper when he was young and that it is amazing how much longer they are living in these days of premium cat foods and vet visits. Cookie and Blackie are on what he calls the 20 year plan which includes a rather precise diet as prescribed by our vet who insisted that these kits take a few pounds off. (We are not even allow to speak the words cat treats to these kits.) Cookie in particular curses that day (and the vet) and she is clearly of the opinion that she would rather live well than long, but she does not really get a say in the matter.

I did search, but could not find articles relating to Feathers and his Colorado Springs family, Mr. and Mrs. James George; although clearly, given the evidence of the professional postcard and the family from another state having visited, word about Feathers must have spread via some form of media at the time. However, Feathers is not forgotten and we celebrate his evident long life as well as his place in the pantheon of cats as a very portly puss.