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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Quondam Tuesday

Today I am taking you back to my Great-Grandmother Beulah Rahmann again. Last week I shared a couple of old wedding photos. This week we will go back a little further of some of her history.
She grew up in Lyons Kansas. This is her parents home in which she lived while they were in Lyons. The photo is actually a news clipping from many years later, as the home was for sale but from the folks that live here after the Butlers. My Great Great Grandfather was Tom Butler of the State Builder & Railroad Contractor.
Nice little crib...
Next I am going to share one of Tom's other passions. His "colts".  This photograph is from 1904, from Arlington, Kansas. He would travel his with prized colts to sell, trade and buy new. I love this photo and I hope you can see it as it is so very faded.
Arlington Kansas 1904 Colt Show
His final passion was his daughters. All eight of them.
The Butler Sisters Spring of 1911
My Great Grandmother Beulah, Granny as she was affectionately known to me. Was the oldest of the girls, on the far right. This photo was taken of the Butler Sisters prior to Beulah's wedding (I noticed she wore this dress, for her graduation photo, her Sister photo and her wedding. Must have been her good dress. The  truly amazing thing is, she snipped portions of it and gave to her own daughters. My Grandmother Mellie, gave it to my Mother, but unfortunately, it perished before my Sister & I were grown. I do remember seeing and touching it, and was in awe over the delicate material and the beautiful stitch work). I believe my Granny was also the last survivor of the girls. One died in childhood, one at the hands of her husband. Then one by one they died, mostly of age related complications.  Beulah, after a wonderful long marriage to a man she loved, and buried, lived on to around 102, I believe. I was just out of high school, and although we lived far apart, I was very fortunate to know her, and visit many times. She was an amazing woman with many stories to tell. I wish now I paid more attention. My Sister has much of the history Granny wrote and collected & Julie will organize it.

One final photograph I wan to share.
This on I call "The Men of Frigidaire". Because it is glued into a very old album, I can not see the date, but assume it was around 1910s-1920s. The man on the far right bottom row, was my Uncle Richard, that married Beulah's sister Annie.

He was a top man in the company, and I feel this picture is really cool. Loving the automobiles in the background, and the snazzy sharp dressed men. I love this photo!

Hope you enjoyed Quondam Tuesday at Just Breathe Janis♥

7 comments:

Scott said...

You have the greatest old photos. How lucky to have those memories captured. I can sure appreciate the part about wishing you had paid more attention when you still had your relatives around. I want to go back and quiz my grandparents, but I'm 30 years too late for that.

Anonymous said...

Jan--- this is great geneology on your part. Where did you get this stuff and were the facts just passed down from family?

What does Quondam mean?

This kind of family history is priceless. Dad has given me many photos and oral history from his side of the family and I really appreaciate the similarities. I need to make sure I preserve this for generations to come.

Thanks--

Rich

Anonymous said...

Great to have such reminders of the past and your family. Sadly, I don't, and like you, wish I had been more keen to find out about my genealogy when there were people around to ask. But, I was 'orphaned' by the time I was in my early thirties, no family left at all barring a couple of remote, geographically and by way of not wanting to have anything to do with me, cousins.

Bee Lady said...

Janis,

I think that third sister from the left is a relative of mine, so I think I have dibs on that castle of a house!!! WOW! I love old houses and that one is some house! We all wish we would have paid more attention to our grandparents,but that's just the thing...we're not interested when we're young, and when we're old enough to be listening to them, we're old enough to be passing on the family history.

Cindy

Linda said...

These are wonderful, Janis, and I really enjoy your stories that accompany the photos! :)

Fire Byrd said...

Amazing to have such fantastic details of your family history, and such great photos.
You are lucky to have so much from the past. I have lots of things, like my great grandparents, grandparents, parents silver napkin rings but not the real history.

janis said...

Thank you all for your kind comments. Rich~ I sent you a message with answers to your questions.
Basically, Quondam is a perfect word for my feelings of memories of long ago.
I do wish I paid attention more when information was handed to me. Ironically, I remember the crazy scary freaky stuff... just not sure about airing it :)