Happy Mother’s Day!
[NOTE: This is a repeat of what has become my annual Mother’s Day post. It was written while my mother was still alive.]
Okay, who are these three dark beauties?
A hint: one of them is the very first picture you’ve ever seen on this blog of neo, sans apple. Not that you’d recognize me, of course. Even my own mother might not recognize me from this photo.
My own mother, you say? Of course she would. Ah, but she’s here too, looking a bit different than she does today—Mother’s Day—at ninety-eight years of age. Just a bit; maybe her own mother wouldn’t recognize her, either.
Her own mother? She’s the one who’s all dressed up, with longer hair than the rest of us.
The photo of my grandmother was taken in the 1880’s; the one of my mother in the teens of the twentieth century; and the one of me, of course, in the 1950s.
Heredity, ain’t it great? My mother and grandmother are both sitting for formal portraits at a professional photographer’s studio, but by the time I came around amateur snapshots were easy to take with a smallish Brownie camera. My mother is sitting on the knee of her own grandfather, my grandmother’s father, a dapper gentleman who was always very well-turned out. I’m next to my older brother, who’s reading a book to me but is cropped out of this photo. My grandmother sits alone in all her finery.
We all not only resemble each other greatly in our features and coloring, but in our solemnity. My mother’s and grandmother’s seriousness is probably explained by the strange and formal setting; mine is due to my concentration on the book, which was Peter Pan (my brother was only pretending to read it, since he couldn’t read yet, but I didn’t know that at the time). My mother’s resemblance to me is enhanced by our similar hairdos (or lack thereof), although hers was short because it hadn’t really grown in yet, and mine was short because she purposely kept it that way (easier to deal with).
My grandmother not only has the pretty ruffled dress and the long flowing locks, but if you look really closely you can see a tiny earring dangling from her earlobe. When I was young, she showed me her baby earrings; several miniature, delicate pairs. It astounded me that they’d actually pierced a baby’s ears (and that my grandmother had let the holes close up later on, and couldn’t wear pierced earrings any more), whereas I had to fight for the right to have mine done in my early teens.
I’m not sure what my mother’s wearing; some sort of baby smock. But I know what I have on: my brother’s hand-me-down pajamas, and I was none too happy about it, of that you can be sure.
So, a very happy Mother’s Day to you all! What would mothers be without babies…and mothers…and babies….and mothers….?
I always love looking at these three photos, Neo. What a continuum.
Beautiful!
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers who socialize here! Most important job on the planet. No question.
My German wife insisted on having our daughter’s ears pierced as soon as possible. I think it was within 5 days of her birth. Maybe it’s a European thing?
I see what you did there. It’s the woman game of “guess wrong and die”.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Actually, I guessed the lower one was you right away. Eye brows and cheeks. Fetching. Happy M-Day Neo!
Here is my mother. She lived in three centuries, born in 1898 and died in 2001. She was 40 the year I was born and her father was 49 when she was born so only three generations separate me from the Civil War. My grandfather was 16 when it ended so he could have served.
I know it’s Mother’s Day, but your great-grandfather’s photo is quite striking—maybe it’s the ‘stache. It’s a shame we can’t go back and talk to our ancestors. You gals look good too. Happy Mother’s Day.
Sven:
My great-grandfather was a very handsome man, and always very well-turned out. He wore spats, for example, according to my mother. His brother was even more handsome, movie-star-ish. And their father extremely handsome as well.
Another photo is here.
Fun pics. Thanks Neo.
There is a small chance that, out of 7.5 billion people, there is someone who looks just like you…or whomever.
Question: Do you think that the person who looks just like you will share many personality traits with you? Or a few? Or none?
Of course it depends upon whether these facial appearance genes are linked to the brain-personality genes. And we don’t know the answer to that…yet.
Mike K.,
Thanks for the link. Interesting history. That’s rather unique that your mother was a rather old age when she had you and her father was rather old when she was born and that she lived so long. I’m sure her life story would make a great movie. Still mostly a horse and buggy world in her youth through two world wars, a global depression, global pandemics and more technological advancement than any human’s lifespan.
It fascinates me that prior to the steam engine and Morse code there was so little change in day to day life for at least 3,000 years. With a capable translator George Washington could talk military strategy with Alexander the Great. An Egyptian Pharaoh could discuss agriculture and economics and politics with Edward IV. And then, in your mom’s lifetime absolutely everything changed
Dnaxy,
My son who looks most like me seems to have most of my wife’s personality. Our daughter, who resembles my mother-in-law most, seems to have a lot of my personality.
It was surprising to me to see traits from family members other than my wife and me surface in our children. We were once visiting my wife’s family in Germany and spent time with a cousin of hers who is quite a bit older, whom she barely knew. More and more, as he discussed his life, we noticed similarities to one of our son’s abilities and interests. His wife pulled out a photo album to show pictures. After a few pages she came to a childhood photo of the cousin when he was about the age this son was at the time and we all gasped. He looked identical to our son at that age. It was as if our son had ridden in a time machine and gone back to appear in an old, black and white photo. It was eerie. As an adult that son now smokes a pipe. Her cousin is also a pipe smoker.
Lovely pictures, great story.
Is it painful to talk about your own history with / without babies? My wife’s sister recently lost her third child, a lovely 17 year old girl. She is buried next to her grandfather, in a plot purchased by her 81 year old grandmother. We planted some flowers in the grave a couple days ago. My wife has two other sisters, unmarried and childless and likely to remain thus.
I’ve got a sister with 3 kids near Denver, an (ex-)step-sister with 4 boys near Detroit, and a never married childless sister living in the Mojave desert near Barstow (Rt 66 – Newberry Springs). My other older childless sister died, and my half-sister with 3 kids died a couple of years ago. My almost not-known half brother is married but so far no kids.
My eldest son is already married for almost 2 years; the both of them to graduate from medical college and become doctors in a couple of months – they’re working in hospitals in Brno as assistants now.
I’m looking forward to becoming a grandfather. We fathers remain important to the continuation of Mother’s Days and children…
Sincere wishes that all enjoyed a fine holiday.
Because of what us called recombination and crossing over, when our parents were making sperm and ova, they essentially were reaching back through their ancestors for DNA from the past and the present. This is why a mother who is, say, a queen of hearts and a father who is the ace of hearts might have a kid who is the three of clubs. The meiosis procedure is looking at the entire reshuffled deck to select the egg and sperm. Being a parent is an education in genetics and every kid is a surprise package.
Dnaxy,
My mother-in-law was stunned when her daughter (my wife) came out with red hair! My mother-in-law conferred with her parents and one of them said they think they remember hearing that one of their great grandmothers was a redhead.
It’s interesting that, from this point in history, most all future generations will have a vast library of images and sound “movies” (digital video) of their DNA pool to reference and examine for inherited traits. Imagine being able to go to your family’s database in the cloud and find a great, great, great, great Aunt of Uncle who has your laugh, or your walk!
Tom Grey:
Sorry to hear about your family’s losses. The loss of a child is an especially bitter and terrible blow.
Speaking of heredity and resemblances – one of the strange things about my family is that everyone looks alike, not just the three in these photos. What I mean is that some people in my father’s family greatly resemble my mother’s family, so much so that my mother’s mother was nearly always thought to be my father’s mother. They looked SO much alike!
Another thing is that my mother’s mother, the top one in this post, looked tremendously like me as a child and young woman. I look at the photos of her from childhood to her mid-thirties and it’s almost like looking at photos of myself. Even the way we stood, the expression, the hair (although not the hairdo). However, after that, we hardly resembled each other at all, physically. Puzzling.
I adored my grandmother, though.
neo,
My parents look nothing alike. As a child I bore a tremendous resemblance to my mother. Now I barely resemble her and look remarkably like my father did at this age, although he was/is shorter and quite a bit heavier. It’s like my DNA flipped.
My daughter looks a lot like my mother-in-law in photos from the same age, but my daughter does not resemble my wife that much.
My family carries the blond/blue-eyed recessive gene, which expressed itself in me and in a single first cousin on both sides, in an otherwise uniform sea of brunettes with brown eyes. To continue with the recessive trend, my mother and father were both O-neg, so of course all three of us kids were as well.
I came along slightly late; my folks were born in 1920 and 1924. Their own births were not particularly late, however, so my grandparents were all born in the Gay Nineties.