Happy Birthday, Auntie Freeman

A hundred and one years ago, Mrs. Freeman was celebrating her birthday and received this card with its lovely bunch of violets from her relative, William S. Bliss.

He calls her Auntie, but I don't think he's her nephew. They are related though.

Here it is in a nutshell.
Edmund Freeman was born in England in 1590, but came over by ship (The Abigail) in 1653 and settled in Lynn, Massachusetts. Five generations later, Lewis and Catherine Freeman had seven children, including twins Ada and Ida, born in 1854. Ada Freeman married Seth Henry Bliss. That's where the relationship between Freeman and Bliss comes in, but William S. (born in 1862) is not one of their children, so he must be a nephew of Henry Bliss. In that case it's especially sweet of him to send a card, don't you agree?

Mrs. Freeman appears to be Florence Peek Freeman, born in about 1850 and married to George Lewis Freeman, a Baptist and a Free Mason who lived in Schuyler Lake, Exeter, Otsego County, New York.

 Here's a photo of the Exeter School in 1915, courtesy of the Exeter Historical Society.

Teacher, Gussie Brainard, Hobart Curtiss, Gladys Truman, May Wilson

next row: Leslie Curtis, Bernice Chappell, Truman Allison, Ferris Bliss, Julia Bliss, Joe Allen, Pearl Bliss

I have trouble matching these names up, unless Pearl is a boy, but whatever the case there are three children with the surname of Bliss in this picture.


Here's what Schuyler Lake looks like today. It's still very rural. Wait a minute...is that the Mason's Lodge?

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And if it happens to be your birthday today, I hope it's full of bliss and happiness.

Get Back, Ya Little Varmint!

If you really want to keep him away though, you will have to do more than just yell. You need to spray him down, and not just with water either. You may need some strong repellants to keep this kind of trouble away.

And if you fail, all sorts of bad things could happen. Ouch!

Don't want that! ...or this:

Watch out for Cupid; you never know what he's packing.

Cats and Dogs

Here is a photo of my mother (on the left) with her Scottish terrier Bluebell and her best friend Audrey. They even have matching pants! The year is about 1939 and they're in California. Although she was young at the time, she vividly remembers hearing the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor two years later.

Several years later and my mother looks very different, but Bluebell looks about the same.

My father didn't have a dog, but here he is at about the same time (1940) at the Berlin Zoo posing with his sister and two lion cubs. Soon, my parents' countries would be at war with each other.

In 1943, allied bombing destroyed the Berlin Zoo, resulting in the death of  many of the animals.
My father emigrated to the United States after the war.

Walk a dog down Memory Lane at Sepia Saturday. Click on the box below to begin your journey.