Picture This

 

    Every family has their own famous iconic photograph. The ones that every aunt, uncle and cousin has hanging on their wall or at least in a photo album that is stacked on a shelf in the den. My Levine side is represented by this picture of my grandfather, Louis Levine with his four sons. This picture was taken in the late 1930s or early 1940s and was reprieved in 1974 when we gathered in Erie for my grandparent’s 60th wedding anniversary. These pictures revive memories and stories of those who have passed. 

     We all have those shoeboxes of old family pictures that have been handed down to us from a parent or grandparent. They sit forgotten for many years and then one day when we are cleaning out a closet we run across this box and look through the old photos. Sometimes we hit a goldmine, unveiling pictures of cousins that we have never met and possibly pictures of people from different parts of our families that were thrown together at a special event. It’s fun to look at relatives from this different perspective. I went through my digital shoebox and I want to share these gems with all of you. 

     I have tons of pictures of my paternal grandparents. Some of them by themselves and many more of them with their children and grandchildren. I have several pictures of my mother’s mother, Rachel. Here is one with Rachel and her son, Al at my parent’s wedding. 

 

 I only have this one picture of my maternal grandfather together with my mother. 

 

     I have great memories of my first cousins on both sides of my family. Henry Kremer was only a year older than me but we got along like brothers. Here we are in front of his house on Oxford street in Hamilton. Ontario.

 

 Henry passed away 12 years ago and we miss him. Another cousin that left us too early is Eliot Levine, pictured here with his welding equipment in Denver, CO.

 

 Cousins Missy, Steve, Cheryl, and Rob were all born within a year and we lovingly refer to them as the gang of four.

 

 Aunt Ruth never had children but she was like an extra parent to Paul, Judy, and Steve Ringold.

 

 I only met my cousin, Charles Webber once. We went on a cruise to Halifax and spent a lovely day with Charles and his wife Sandra.

 

 Arlene’s first cousin once removed, David Koff got married 9 years ago. Here is a picture of David and Mary with his sister, Jamie and his brother, Matthew and Matthew’s wife Sasha. 

 

    It is fun to find pictures of people when they were much younger than we remember them. Here is a picture of my grand uncle, Max along with my mother;s brother Lou.

 

 My mother used to work at Knowles Tobacco in Toronto and here is a picture of her with her workmates at a company party.  She is upper left.

 

 Arlene’s father, Jack looks natural on a bike

 

 and his brother, Arthur was a handsome young man. 

 

Arlene was named after Arthur and here is a picture of her at one of her birthday parties on Williams Avenue in Philadelphia.

 

 My cousins Manny and Bryan Kremer are pictured here with our cousin Alan Rosenswaig and one unidentified person. 

 

 Here are my parents shortly after they were married. 

 

 Bessie Snyder was Arlene’s grandmother and this picture of her as a young woman is quite stunning.

 

 I have a number of pictures of my grandfather, Louis Levine as a young man but I had never seen this picture until recently. 

 

My great grandmother, Beille Pasternak is pictured here with two of her daughters, Miriam and Bina. 

 

     Family gatherings are always great photo ops. When my grand uncle, Shmuel Pasternak visited family in Canada from France with his daughter Blanche, we drove up to Toronto to see them. I was about 14 or 15 then and I never met Blanche again until December of 2019 just shortly before her death. 

 

 A passover seder in the Carlton household was the setting for this picture. Sadly, Arlene is the only person in this picture who is still alive. 

 

    This last picture is a mystery to me. Somebody posted it on a facebook group for Jewish genealogy. When I saw the picture I thought that the woman in the picture looked very much like my great grandmother, Tsiril. What really shocked me was that the name on the gravestone was Kahanovich. That was Tsiril’s married name. The gravestone is marked with the jewish year of 5677 which is 1916. I have yet to find if there is any connection to our family. 

 

    So remember, if you come across some old, rare photographs of your family make sure you save them or at least send them to your family historian.