Album 1, Part 13 (pages 49-52)

1_49_01.jpg

Nicholson (Dot's mother Elizabeth's maiden name) family reunion on farm of Dot's uncle Joe and aunt Flora.
Immediate families were together in this picture, noted below by brackets [...]
Heads, L to R: [Larue, Ed, Dot], [Edna (Walter Slack's wife), Iola, Arleigh, Walter Jr., Marion], Beatrice Slack Owens,
[Bill Keyes, wife Anne Slack Keyes], [Ernest Slack, daughter Vera Jean, wife Edna Cullison Slack]
Small children in front: Bea's Teddy and Edna's Charlotte

1_49_02.jpg

Dot's uncle (Elisabeth's youngest brother) seated with cane, and associated cousins and second cousins.
Entire group, counterclockwise from top left:
Edward Finn, wife Anadel Finn, Mary Groote, Edward Nicholson, Ruth Groote, husband Herman Groote

1_49_04.jpg

Dot's four uncles and one aunt. Joseph, in overalls, owns the farm in this gathering.
Other uncles are Ed, Lincoln and Tom, but which is which is uncertain.
The aunt is Mary or Margaret. There were ten children in all.

Joe's farm was near Amboy or Lu Center, Illinois. At this time it was run down because Dot's uncle Joe and aunt Flora were aged and not keeping it up as they had. Dot was sad because she remembered it as a child when it was very alive and beautiful. Bert, and Bob, whose pictures come later, remember this occasion fondly. They played on a large haystack 10 to 12 feet tall, which had a cantilever hanging over one side because animals had been eating from the stack. They climbed up the intact side, and when they stepped onto the cantilever the hay gave way to form a hole, through which they fell to the ground. Fortunately, there was a generous pad of hay below the cantilever, so the fall was a fun ride and not a disaster. They did this over and over and threw themselves this way and that on the haystack. They made a mess of the stack but uncle Joe laughed and said it was okay.

1_50_01.jpg

Dot's aunt's and uncles at Flora and Joe's farm (they're just right of center)

1_50_02.jpg

Back heads: Don, Walter, ?, Ed, ?, ?, ?, ?, Larue, Dot, Bea, Ernest, Edna, ?, Arleigh, Iola, Bill Keys, ?, Walter's Edna
Center children: Bert, Bob, Vera Jean, ?
Dot's aunts and uncles seated, children: Charlotte, Teddy, ?

Historical notes from Larue: Elizabeth's brother Tom (Larue thinks) went west in a covered wagon. He went as far as Arizona and there married. No children. He and his wife divorced and he returned to Joe's farm in Illinois in the covered wagon. He must have stayed in Arizona quite a while because at the time of this reunion (circa 1938) the horses were still alive. Tom took a number of the children, including Larue, into the barn and showed the wagon to them, and the horses, which he kept well fed and groomed. When the young people returned to the main group, one of them was praising how beautiful the horses were and some old cat replied, "They should be, that's all he has or cares about!" Another family scandal of the day -- one of Dot's cousins, named Ed, snuck off in the afternoon to get a beer. When he came back all of the old aunts were in a tizzy over it. Bert's note: Dot's whole family was very straight laced, including Dot, and Larue has upheld the tradition. :-)

1_52_01.jpg (same negative as 1_28_02)

Vacation lunch stop at a school, circa 1934, Don, Dot, Larue, Bert, Bob