Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Wordless Wednesday: Trip to Galveston, c. 1932-33

From left:  my mother, Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape (born 1928); her brother, Charles Peter Guokas III (1927-1999); her mother, Sara Melzina Wolfe Guokas Archibald (1907-1997); and her sister, Jo Ann (Sister Jean Marie) Guokas (born 1930).

The picture was taken in Galveston, Texas (perhaps on the Bolivar Ferry?), but is undated.  Jo Ann looks to be about two years old, so I'm guessing this was taken in 1932 or early 1933.  My grandfather, Charles Peter Guokas Jr. (1903-1967), is not in the photo--perhaps he took it.

© Amanda Pape - 2012 - click here to e-mail me.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Sentimental Sunday: Breathless' First Portrait

Breathless' mother also had this entry in his baby book:

"Aug. 26, 1942 - Mark had his picture made at the studio.  He then had his hair cut - didn't like it much."

The photograph is a black-and-white that has been hand-colored. It's signed in pencil in the lower right corner, "Hall Gentry."  Hall Gentry Studio was located at 423 Peoples Street, according to the 1941 Corpus Christi, Texas, City Directory, page 260.


© Amanda Pape - 2012 - click here to e-mail me.

Friday, August 24, 2012

Happy Birthday to My Sweetie!


 Breathless' mother kept a baby book.  In the section for "Baby's First Birthday," she wrote:

He liked all his toys, but I believe he liked his cake best.  Uncle Bennie [Benjamin Mew, husband of Breathless' aunt Ivis Moore Mew] gave him a horn, hammer, and Pluto.  Daddy bought his blocks and Mother got him "Mickey."

© Amanda Pape - 2012 - click here to e-mail me.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Wordless Wedding Wednesday: Pape Family at Fred's Wedding, 1954


This photo was taken of my dad and his parents and siblings on my parents' wedding day, September 11, 1954, in Houston, Texas.  From left:  Paul Robert "Bob" Jr. (1926-2008), Rose Mary "Moe" (1931-2007), Paul Robert Sr. (1896-1970), Elizabeth Florence (1902-2000), Frederick Henry (born 1926), Marilyn Electa "Beety" (born 1933), and Elizabeth "Betty" Mary (born 1927).

© Amanda Pape - 2012 - click here to e-mail me.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Sentimental Sunday: Louis Henry Wolfe and Children, circa 1922-1926

 

This is a photo of my maternal grandmother and her siblings and father.   From the left are Edith Elizabeth Wolfe Smith Murff Brown Gould Knox (1910-2006); my grandmother, Sara Melzina Wolfe Guokas Archibald (1907-1997); Lloyd L. Wolfe (1906-1993); my great-grandfather, Louis Henry Wolfe (1872-1929), and Neva Marie Wolfe Ely (1912-1995).  The photo was likely taken before my grandmother's marriage in July, 1926.  My great-grandmother, Addilee Tennessee Shelton Wolfe Odom Harris (1890-1977), is not in the photograph.  She had abandoned the family by 1916.  Marie, the youngest, looks to be about 8 in this picture, so I don't think it was taken before 1922.

© Amanda Pape - 2012 - click here to e-mail me.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

(Not-So-) Wordless Wedding Wednesday: Gordon Parks and Pat Pape Hunter, August 17, 1948

This is Gordon Merritt Parks (1916-2004) and Patricia "Pat" Pape Hunter (1923-1967) on their wedding day, August 17, 1948, 64 years ago this Friday.  The picture was provided by Pat's daughter Debby, a relative I just made contact with a few months ago via information in Gordon's obituary. 

Before Debby could tell me, I was able to figure out where Gordon and Pat got married.  I knew it was in Chicago, and was pretty sure it was a Catholic church, as Pat was raised Catholic.

See the "1633" on the door in the background?  I did a search on the words "1633 Catholic church Chicago" (without the quotation marks) and pulled up St. Michael's in Old Town.  Then, using Street View in Google Maps,  I wandered (virtually) around the church until I found an entrance that pretty much matched up to this one.  The doors now have windows cut into them, and there are handrails now on each side of the stairs, but this is the entrance to the rectory of St. Michael's Catholic Church in the Old Town part of Chicago, at 1633 North Cleveland Avenue.

© Amanda Pape - 2012 - click here to e-mail me.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Sentimental Sunday: Bob, Betty, and Fred Pape, early 1930s


This photograph was likely taken in the early 1930s.  My dad, Fred Pape, on the far right, was born in February 1929, and he looks to only be two or three years old in this picture.  If he was four or more, then his younger sister Rose Mary (born 1931) would probably have also been in the picture.

Dad's older siblings Bob (born 1926) and Betty (born 1927) are identified.  But who is the other little girl?  It might be cousin Mary Jane Bleidt (born October 1924), or Pat Pape (born March 1923).

© Amanda Pape - 2012 - click here to e-mail me.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Wordless Wednesday: Pape Family, circa 1935

My grandmother, Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape (1902-2000), with her children, from left, Rose Mary Pape Dietz (1931-2007), Marilyn Electa Pape Hedger (born 1933), Paul Robert Pape Jr. (1926-2008), Elizabeth "Betty" Marie Pape Streff (born 1927), and my dad, Frederick Henry Pape (born 1929).  Not sure why my grandfather, Paul Robert Pape Sr. (1896-1970), is not in the picture.

© Amanda Pape - 2012 - click here to e-mail me.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Sentimental Sunday: Pat Pape Hunter, age 2, 1925

This adorable little girl is my dad's first cousin, Patricia "Pat" Pape Hunter Parks (1923-1967), when she was two years old.  It was sent to me by her daughter Debby, who I was able to track down via her father Gordon Merritt Parks' (1916-2004) obituary. 

When I saw this picture, I wondered immediately if Pat might be the unknown flower girl in the wedding party for my grandparents' wedding in September, 1924.  Here's an enlargement of the flower girl from that photo:

What do you think?

© Amanda Pape - 2012 - click here to e-mail me.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Happy Birthday to My Brother Mark!


© Amanda Pape - 2012 - click here to e-mail me.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

(Not-So-) Wordless Wednesday: Dog Days of Summer

The library where I work recently did a display called "Dog Days of Summer," and asked all employees to submit photos of dogs in their lives.  I took the layout a co-worker did and tweaked it a little bit to include all the dogs in my life:

- the two basset hounds we had growing up, Bismarck followed by Barney;

- the two Belgian sheepdogs we had in my offspring's youth, Keena and Texas (mother and son); and

- my brothers' dogs:  Odin, a Labrador retriever that belongs to Brian, and Johan, a Goldendoodle that belongs to Mark.

© Amanda Pape - 2012 - click here to e-mail me.