Here’s something we don’t get to see every day: a photo of a woman on her 70th birthday posing with all seven of her siblings.
What makes it extra special for me is that it’s a pic of my late mom on her big day together with all her sisters – and one lone brother!
Front, L-R: Lillian, Ida (my mom), Ethel.
I remember organizing this gala luncheon using all my skills (such as they were): I got the venue (“La Diligence” restaurant, long gone now), planned the menu, and wrote to the three out-of-town families, with follow-up phone calls.
I’m pretty sure my dad took this picture. Next to Uncle Mel, he was the family’s most prolific photographer.
The only surviving sibling now is Edith – which is fitting, as she was the youngest. She lives in a nursing home in Connecticut near her children.
Don’t we all have precious pics of our family history? This one’s definitely near the top of my list!
Crossed Eyes and Dotted Tees 
I love that photo. Thanks for posting it. I can’t help but wonder what Uncle Mel’s life was like, being surrounded by so many sisters.
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He loved it!!! All the attention, they all doted on him! He was also the second-youngest, so you can imagine!
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Oh, my! That is really something.
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Lovely photo and great memory to have! ❤
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For sure, thanks! ❤
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Thanks so much for this blog post. Since I’m married into the family and being a family researcher, putting faces to the names is fantastic!
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I can imagine! Thank YOU for all your wonderful research into our family tree!!
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What a nice keepsake having this photo Ellie. Your uncle was like a thorn among the roses. When my mom turned fifty years old my grandmother and aunt who lived together in Toronto decided to come over to Michigan to surprise her. I was in college at the time, going to WSU in downtown Detroit. I wrote them on the side and everything was all set – neither of my parents knew of their arrival. I went to the Greyhound station in downtown Detroit and got them and all three of us came home on the suburban bus. We stopped at the diner where I worked and my boss had gone earlier in the day to the bakery to pick up the birthday cake and drove us and the cake home. My father wasn’t home from work and I unlocked the door and said “Hi Mom I’m home and my grandmother, bearing the cake, went up into the kitchen where she sat at the table and said Happy Birthday to her. She started to cry and was so surprised. Then my aunt popped her head around the corner. “How did you pull this off?” she said. I should see if I have pictures from then in the big scan project I did last Fall when I digitized the albums and do a memory post one day – maybe when she would have turned 100?
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Actually we could equally say my uncle was the rose among the thorns, lol! They all doted on him!! That family surprise caper was magnificent! When you have time, those pix would make a great post!
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That is funny that he was the rose. I should think of an occasion for that surprise birthday post – it was special and the look on her face. In retrospect, I should have had a camera handy and stood behind my grandmother as she walked in with the cake. My mom was homesick to return to Canada after we moved here. At that time we’d been here 10 years and when we moved here my father said “10 years working here and we’ll return to Canada” … that never happened as you know. That would have been right around the 10-year mark.
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