Victorian Verna

I love photography, and particularly old photographs. This Victorian styled photograph was taken about 1910 in Roanoke, Virginia of my great grandmother, Verna Andrews Kohl.

Verna's mother died when she was just 13 years old and she moved to Roanoke from Amherst, Virginia to live with her aunt, Anna Laura Magann Hogan. She worked in a clothing retail store where she would meet her husband.

I love the puffed sleeves, the Victorian heart necklace, the chatelaine on her left shoulder and her divine hairstyle of the period. She looks sort of wistful but is very attractively posed on a bench of the period.

She would live the rest of her life (excepting her elder, more infirm years) in Roanoke, Virginia. A truly gentle woman who was a loving mother, grandmother, and great grandmother.

Road Trips- 52 Weeks of Personal History and Genealogy

Week #36 – Road Trips

Week 36: Road Trips. Describe a family road trip from your childhood. Where did you go and why? Who was in the car? How did you pass the time?

Oh, the memories of the station wagon with the fake wood trim down the side. An iconic vehicle packed full of all of our essentials for the next month or two. Being an Army brat, we moved frequently and one packed up whatever one would need until the moving truck would arrive at our next destination.

Once all the belongings were crammed into the car it was time to shoe horn the children into the vehicle. Of course this was in the days before air conditioned vehicles, so the tighter the car got packed the hotter the vehicle became. The miles went by slowly, needless to say ,moving from the East Coast to the state of Kansas. Two 12 hour days of closeness designed to test the most even of tempers.

Being a one car family, as most families were in those days, there was no wiggle room. Parents in the front, three kids in the back with suitcases in the floor wells. All right, now for the coup de grace, cram the 100 pound Labrador Retriever in ON TOP of the kids and away we went! Of course the dog would scramble across the outstretched bare legs of the kids wearing shorts-- to see out one window, and then back across all those legs to look out the other window. (A dog always is convinced the other window has the best view.) Oh, the life of a military family on the move in the 1970s!