Things happened before I was born. Long before I was born.
That may be a difficult concept for modern young people to consider, and it took me a while to come to terms with it, but all this photographic evidence eventually won me over. Let’s explore.
Despite my collection and attempted organization of all these slides from the last 70+ years, I am far from the family historian. I can remember the pictures, but none of the details I’ve been told about who is in them (even if I was told yesterday lol), so I’m guessing my best here.
Ladies First
It may be impolite to reference the age of a lady, but my mother Jan arrived in the 1940s to George and Joan Matilo, in Cleveland, Ohio. Here are my maternal grandparents around that time:
Many of these slides from back in this era were undated, so I may have my order mixed up here, but I’ve put a ruler to the screen to try and compare heights in different photos to sort that out. Not really.
From what I can figure in the photos I’ve got, this is the youngest picture of my mom:
That’s my mom and her sister Mary Lou in an awesome old (not at the time) car. They had a related caper in car in the driveway at one point in which they were rescued by a passing mailman, but I doubt it was at the time of this picture.
I don’t have dates for most of this next group of awesome Matilo family photos, but late 1940s/early 1950s seems likely.
And then the third Matilo daughter arrived as Susie joined the party:
And My Dad
My dad Bill was born to Fred and Fran Goudie in Detroit, Michigan, also a first child like my mom. Here’s the earliest picture of my dad I have, being held by his Grandpa Goudie:
My dad was joined shortly thereafter by his sister Susie:
We’ve got to take a break here to talk about the Mackinaw connection across these lives and my life. I was lucky enough growing up to visit Mackinaw Island for a few days once (even twice some years) each summer as my parents attended Michigan Banker’s Association or Michigan Savings & Loans Association conventions at the Grand Hotel. That I was aware of, and those pictures will be coming way down the line in this series.
Until I got through both sets of my grandfathers’ slides, however, I didn’t realize that Mackinaw Island was in the past of both sides of the family (more on that in a future post as well). For now, let’s start with the fact that a Mackinaw City cottage right on the lake was in the Goudie family when my dad was growing up, and was a regular part of summer vacations.
These pictures are from the 1940s & 1950s, near as I can figure:
In the first picture above, that spit of land looks like it would be perfect for a bridge, doesn’t it? Well:
That’s a brief tour through the childhoods of my parents.
Next up: their pre-kids phase
My Life in 35mm is a series of posts with the story of my life as recorded on the slides of my dad and other family members. This series is updated weekly (mostly). To get email updates of new posts, subscribe at the bottom of this page.
You can also view all posts in the My Life in 35mm series.
