Mom and Dad hardly ever made photo albums. Mom allowed me to sort through drawers of photos to fish out photos of both of them.
















































































Mom and Dad hardly ever made photo albums. Mom allowed me to sort through drawers of photos to fish out photos of both of them.
















































































This post is a mix of my grandfather, his family of origin, his ancestors, offshoots, his wife and a little bit of her family, and his own children. The “offshoots” take the form of my grandfather’s aunt’s family, the Parmly’s. They are a Vermont family. Some of them went to New Jersey. There’s a fascinating account of my grandfather’s second(?) cousins, one of whom married a man who’d been convicted of manslaughter. My mom wondered why her father never mentioned anything about that. And yet, not exactly a point of pride.





Reverend Duncan Dunbar wrote a book. Here is a bio of him.











Bio of Wheelock Hendee Parmly who married Katharine Dunbar, daughter of Pastor Duncan Dunbar.



































Scroll down for photos of Connie Converse as a child playing with Marion’s children. Howard Fishman wrote a book about Connie Converse published in 2023 called “For Anyone Who Ever Asks”. Her music is available on Spotify and Apple Music.



































Scroll to end for:
1-a letter to Marion from Joseph Smith Eaton about her mother’s grave sight.
2–a letter confirming Martha Evans Eaton as a Daughter of the Revolution, and
3-an ancestry.com list of the Eatons




































The following lists are spotty and not documentary proof but simply people on the internet entering info about the relatives on ancestory.com.




Spencer Evans Eaton was born January1, 1901, to Joseph and Martha Eaton.





































































































Dad had these pics in his desk.

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I think this next one was before she was married.

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.This is my grandmother’s sister, Faye.

.And here’s my grandfather.

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They traveled a lot with friends during retirement.





















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I saw my parents’ wedding photos before I’d ever been to a wedding. I was so young that their wedding was less than ten years in the past (by the time I saw the photos) but I interpreted them as having been taken a hundred years ago. They’re in black and white! All the other photos I’d ever seen were in color.
Let’s take a look at these puppies.
The bride:

This is the first time I remember seeing my mom without glasses. And I approved. But I didn’t recognize her as the same person. 🤓







Everything about this scene looked nerve-racking to me. That it’s in black and white makes it more ominous.

Above is essentially the first and almost last time you see my father’s side of the family.

And finally you can really see the groom, Thomas Blake Day. I remember looking at the flowers and wishing church always had flowers. Church was a scary place to me.

They look marvelous.

Great pic of them both.

Where are they going? I always sort of wondered.

I never understood why this kid is seeming to take a confrontational stance with the bride’s maids. And who is he?

Why are all these guys kissing my mom? Ew. If you have to get kissed in public in a fancy dress, forget it. Ew.

I always wondered why my dad was yelling at this kid. Also, again, who is that kid?




Always thought cutting cake in gloves indoors was an odd choice.


Cake seemed to me like a good enough reason to go through the struggle of a wedding.

This made sense to me because my grandfather was a caterer and I knew that meant serving food. Plus my dad’s father always wore suits. Robert Blake Day of Robert Day Deans catering of New York City.

Always wondered where my dad was going.

Do people even have receiving lines anymore? In many ways it’s a nice tradition but I can see why it faded away.

As a kid I always thought this business of everyone standing around shaking hands looked unnerving. What are they talking about?

It’s a cute pic of my mom and I wondered what the woman had said to her to prompt that expression.

There was something about the black and white that always made this seem like a silent movie from a century ago.

I wondered if my mom was getting reprimanded by her mom. Could she have done something wrong? That’s one of my mom’s brothers (Wallace Dunbar) in the background. I don’t see the other two brothers in any of the pictures. (Their names were Duncan Dunbar, Jr. and Randolph Dunbar).

My grandfathers know each other? The two men were so different. What could they be talking about? Next time I saw them together was at my piano recital in about 1968. That was the last time.

When I was young I didn’t really see my dad smile a lot. He scowled. But then later on he seemed to loosen up. Then went back to scowling.

Here they are with both sets of parents. This is the only full on photo of my dad’s mom, Beatrice Keeney Day. Why does mother of the groom get short shrift?

Someone had to explain this to me. It looked dangerous and spooky to me. Also, first we’re in church and then we move into superstitions! 👀



Well that was a fun trip down memory lane.
Sixty-six years ago.
Of course now I see that the photographer was talented and was capturing the scenes in the tried and true methods. I get it. But as a kid I had no context. Weddings are play-acting, following traditions. This photo album was someone’s job.
And it was well done. 👏
Because it’s Father’s Day, and because many of the people who worked for my dad called him “Dads”, here’s a post about “Dad at Work”. He had other names, too:

These slips of paper were given to him at his Retirement Party. They are a collection of things people said around the office, the job sites, and in the trucks. These are interspersed below with some pics of the pools he built:




I don’t know who John is.



They had lots of fun at work. My dad was a good boss. He cared about people.


Beautiful:


Also beautiful:

Throwback:






















Finally:

I think Dad retired 20 years ago. I remember the party they threw him. He was glad to retire but I think a little sad to say goodbye. He visited with people around town though. Several were at the service when he died. As were people from back in his previous business back in the seventies, Eleazars. It was a Rock n Roll palace, bringing up a generation of future rehab attendees. Again, lots of fun! People loved working for him. But he was happy to sell that place, too. He played golf for years after retirement but then had heart problems and type two diabetes and eventually had to stop playing golf all together because his feet would get blisters and wouldn’t heal. He also had COPD and hypertension. But he was never bedbound or in a nursing home or old folks home, something he would have hated. He wanted to go out super fast and Covid seemed to do the trick. Covid triggered the heart attack and then the stroke. He was breathing fine during the whole ordeal and only spent a day or two in the ICU.
Well this has been my first Father’s Day without having a Dad. I think about him constantly. Everyday. I miss him terribly but have lots of memories to cherish. Happy Father’s Day, Dad!
