Family and related photos, 1947 - 1952

The 130 photos in this gallery date from 1947 to 1952. They were mostly taken by me and developed by me in a makeshift darkroom in the only full bathroom in our family's home in Vienna, Virginia. (The rest of the family just had to wait or use the single half bath downstairs.) Most of these pictures were never printed, either because photo paper was too expensive to use for any but the best or because the images were too under exposed or over exposed or both to be printable with the skills and equipment I then had. The present images have been recovered and cleaned up with Photoshop from scanned-in negatives that I had stashed away in an old shoebox for the past 55 years.

Collectively, the pictures offer a glimpse of family life 55 to 60 years ago, mostly in and around our house in Vienna, then a semi-rural community. Cows grazed in a field across the street. The house has long since been demolished and the area is now a highly urbanized business and shopping district. Needless to say, a number of the persons depicted here are also no longer with us.

The initial photos in the group are the earliest. After the first dozen or so, the pictures are not in any particular order. They are mostly grouped alphabetically according to the names of their subjects.