Lottie's Photos: Chris 1950

 

Anna and Lewis Pattillo holding Chris,
Christening Day

This photo is from volume two of Lottie’s ninety-four photo albums. It covers the period April 1950 to August 1957. Volume one started in January of 1938 and stopped in October of 1949. So, there is no photographic evidence of what happened during the two months before my birth until three months after I was born. Sadly, Mom’s written journals also stopped in 1947, so we’ll probably never know how she felt about my conception or birth.

The photo was taken on April 1, 1950 – the day I was christened. I love the hat my grandmother Anna is wearing and that four-inch-wide tie looks like something Grandpa might have purchased at the San Francisco World Fair. Grandpa Lewis has a pocket watch on a chain that is looped over a button and hanging down from that is what looks like a mechanical pencil or a plumb bob. Anyone know what that is?

Emma & John Thornally, my
maternal grandparents

Here I am with my maternal grandparents Emma and John Thornally. Grandpa seems to be bursting out of his pants and Gramma is wearing the pair of glasses I had remade and wore during the 1970s while attending college at UC.

Just three months after I was born and mom is looking very slender in her glamorous dress – no doubt one of her own creations. Dad looks pretty spiffy in his white shirt and suspenders. Mom was 30 and Dad nearly 37.

These are my godparents – Dorothy Menge and her husband Bill McTigue. Mom was very close to all her cousins – particularly Dorothy and Marion. In her diary she wrote about going out dancing with Dorothy, they're having a fight that lasted several days, Dorothy asked Mom to be one of her bridesmaids, then she threatened to elope but instead had a church wedding on November 5^th 1937. When Dorothy was pregnant Mom hosted a baby shower. Mom wore Dorothy’s veil when she was married and after she and Dad were married, they continued to socialize with Dorothy and Bill and spent time with them at Ben Lomond.