Monday, November 2, 2009

Day of the Dead 2009

As I wrote last year on this day (http://cynfulcreationscanada.blogspot.com/2008/11/dia-de-los-muertos.html), also known as All Souls Day, November 2nd is traditionally a day to celebrate the dead in Mexico. You can read more about this celebration by following this link to the Wikipedia listing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead.

In honour of this tradition, last year I shared with you a couple of photos of my grandparents. This year, since today would have been my dad's birthday if he was still with us, I thought I'd post a few photos of my great-grandparents on his side of the family, which I recently found in a photo album I hadn't looked at in a long time.

The picture on the left is of my grandfather's parents, my great grandparents, Clarence and Mary Ann. The picture on the right is also of Mary Ann - doesn't she look pretty in that fancy dress? Unfortunately, I don't have any information about what year these photos might have been taken but someone who knew the fashions from those days could probably tell from those sleeves!

This next photo is of Clarence's family, presumably before he married Mary Ann, as she is not in the photo. Judging by the beard on my great-great grandfather Isaac, it's pretty easy to see where Clarence got the idea for that handlebar mustache, eh? The little girl is identified as "Cousin Olive", her dad is the man on the far right of the back row, Clarence's brother Ernest (hmm, no sign of Ernest's wife, Olive's mother, seems odd). The handsome man on the far left (who looks like Al Gore, don't you think?) is Victor, the husband of Clarence's sister Constance (beside him), then we have the rest of Clarence's siblings, my great-great aunts and uncles, Monteith (Monty), Ethel and the afore mentioned Ernest (where did they get these names, I wonder?!)

One last photo of my other great grandparents, i.e. Mary Ann's parents, George and Jane, a rather sombre looking pair.

I never met any of the people in these photos but I'm glad there are photos to keep their memory with us and today, I am thinking of them.

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