First Communion

This is my grandmother and her brother posing for their First Holy Communion ca. 1933.

Uncle Jack (Gioacchino) (repost)

Ok, so this is a repost of my "Uncle Jack" post I put up last month. Apparently I received the wrong information. I finally found the truth (or at least what I'm told is the truth.... and if not, oh well, I'm sticking to this one) about my grandmother's Uncle Jack.

He was in the Italian army during World War I. He was captured by the Germans, and kept as a POW for nine months, during which he ate mostly potatoes. After he came back from the war he would never eat a potato again. He also spent some time in Ethiopia, when Italy was in control of the country.

The photo was probably taken sometime during the 1920s.

Special thanks to Megan, who cleaned and restored this photo for me. Thank you!

July 24, 1948 Robert and Anna

Today is my grandparents 62nd wedding anniversary! They were married at 5 pm in Maspeth, NY.

Here's their song!!!

I like this song too :)

Flower Girl

Another wedding pic. This time my grandmother is the flower girl! Her brother is the ring bearer. The bride is my grandmother's paternal aunt. My grandmother looks around 4 years old in this photo, so I'm dating it 1930 (she was born in '26). The wedding dress still looks '20s-ish. My grandmother's dress was supposedly handmade by her mother (who was a seamstress).

Since I put a song for the other wedding pic :) 1930

It Had to Be You

As promised, here is one of the wedding photos from my great-grandparents' wedding in 1924.

The photo is a little discolored and faded from being under a futon for the last 50 years. I played around with the contrast and saturation to bring out as much detail as I could. I wish I could have scanned it. There are a lot of little details that aren't clear in this digital camera pic.

The men look so handsome in their tuxedos. I love the maid of honor's dress! It looks very '20s!

I imagined that this song was played at their wedding.........

The Little Gentleman

How adorable is this picture? I don't know who this little boy is, but he has to be one of my grandmother's older cousins. I say this because he is in my great-grandmother's wedding photo. I think he is even wearing the same tuxedo. Maybe this was taken at the same time the wedding photos were taken. My great-grandparents were married in 1924, so I'm dating this photo the same year.

My favorite part about this picture is his hair: parted down the middle. It's such a 1910s/1920s hair style. It would look so strange if a boy did his hair like that now.

I noticed that many of the photos I have from the 1920s/30s are printed on the back of postcards, including this photo. I've read that there was this postcard craze in the beginning of the twentieth century. Maybe that is why I'm finding so many. Half of the ones I have are in Italian, and the other half is in English. This one was in English, which makes sense because my great-grandparents were married in America.

I'm dying to post the photos I have from my great-grandparent's wedding. They are amazing. They are just way to big to scan. I've been trying to take a picture of them using my digital camera, but they weren't coming out good. I'll keep trying....... Hopefully soon.

La Bellissima Regina

I was going to post this photo later after I introduced my great-grandmother, but I couldn't help it. I'm in love with this picture. I found this photo with others of my great-grandmother from 1920s. This woman is in other pics with my great-grandmother, so she is probably one of her friends or family members. My great-grandparents lived in Little Italy, NY on Broome Street in the 1920s. That is probably where this picture was taken.

I think this photo is gorgeous! There are so many things to love about it. I especially love the juxtaposition of this elegantly dressed woman set against the dilapidated, urban background. It looks like she is a queen sitting on her throne.

I wonder how much thought was put into it. The composition is just beautiful...the levels and the textures... G'ah! It makes the art geek inside me happy. lol

Truly Thine

I have no idea whom these two wonderful women are. I found this photo in an old shirt box (hence the blog name) with a hundred other pictures from my grandma's childhood.

The photograph itself is mounted on some sort of mat board. The colorful designs on top are not original. They are stickers (when were stickers invented, anyway?) or things someone has pasted onto the board. If you look close you can see the original design beneath the stickers.

I don't have any idea when this photo could have been taken. It appears to be very old. The picture is faded, and the women's dresses are in a very old style. Maybe pre-1910s...? I'm pretty positive that it is from Italy....Sicily to be exact. My grandmother's family was from Vittoria. There was part of a stamp on the back that had something in Italian.

Can anyone help me date this fantastic photo?

Prima Donna Nonna

This is a photo of my nanie when she was a little girl taken in the early to mid 1930's. I love how you can see the shadow of the person taking the photo. You can tell he is probably using a box camera (or something like it) from the position of his hands!