Then and Now - Olympics

Mr. GAP and family visited beautiful Vancouver last week to catch a women's hockey match at the Winter Olympic games!


Our trip took us through Seattle, but unfortunately we did not have a chance to call Lori. (Hi, Lori!) I guess we will have to go back!


Joe, my dad, told me that Grandma and Grandpa took the family to the Seattle World's Fair in 1962 when the Space Needle opened, but I have not yet seen any pictures from it. Does anyone have a story or two to share about the trip?

This was our family's second trip to the Olympics, the first being in 2002 to the Salt Lake Winter Olympics when Boyd was three months old.


He is on the far right in the top picture, which provides a nice then and now comparison.

At the Salt Lake games we attended the women's halfpipe competition in Park City with Karla and Brian Toomer, as well as with some friends -- very good friends (our children's godparents) -- from Montana.


We crashed at the farm with Grandma and Grandpa, who were enjoying some unseasonably warm weather. We could not have asked for better hosts!


We also attended a women's hockey match in Provo with Lucas. I should get a more recent picture of Lucas so we can do a then and now of him, too.


We vowed at the time that if the Olympics ever came back to our neck of the woods we would have to attend again. Since we were in Montana when the Vancouver games were announced, we told the boys their whole lives that we would take them to the 2010 games. Although we now live in Virginia, a promise is a promise, so we went.

Now, if the Olympics ever come back to our neck of the woods again....

Then and Now - Igloos

In Grandpa's slide collection are some really great pictures of an igloo on the Stutz farm, including the following of John and Ellen from a slide developed in September 1967.


As it turns out, I took a similar shot of Boyd and Sam in an igloo today -- Happy Birthday, Sam! -- in our front yard.


Not a shabby comparison, especially when you consider that the top one was taken at an elevation of 4,500 feet in Provo, Utah, and the bottom one was taken at an elevation of 250 feet in Arlington, Virginia, i.e. the South!

School Portrait - Dave

So far with the school portraits we have featured Lori, Kent, Craig, Tom, Joe, Boyd/Sam, Ellen, Shari, John, Susan, and Ryan, as well as some non-school portraits of Grandpa, Grandma, Priscilla, and a variety of unidentified people. Today we have Dave's pictures -- Joe's David (brother!), not Ellen's David (cousin!). As with all the school portraits, we did attempt to put them in chronological order. You are invited to let us know where we got the order wrong or to provide any additional details about these portraits.

Send in your current (or past) school portraits, and we will feature them on GAP. We are running short on portraits!

Unknown


Unknown


Unknown


1986 - Twelfth Grade (Bonn, Germany)

By the way,
until Dave comments on
these pictures,
the proper response
can only be to remain
unspoken about
them.

UPDATE

Dave comments and provides a recent portrait, triggering GAP's "Then and Now" tag. Thanks, Dave!

I think we need to look through some of Yia Yia's [Stella's] old albums for a few more of these - I don't remember ever having a 'laser' portrait taken, but I do know that I've had those double exposures done - one face looking straight on, and the other floating ghostlike above in silhouette.

Because we still are in school, I still get those portraits taken every year. I'll see if I can track down any of the more recent ones, but here's my school photo from 2007.

But, I think the joke in the post went over his head. Cut him some slack, though; I'm sure a younger Dave could crack the code!

Dave comments again, but it looks like code cracking is not his style.

Sorry - I wasn't looking for a code.
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean it isn't there.
Can you help me find it?
Kibbutzing via the internet isn't working.
I really have tried, but with no luck.
Too bad, I'll bet it was funny.
But if you try again, I promise to search.
Regardless of my chances of success.
Or not.

Mystery Picture 091010

Today's mystery picture is not about the who or the where. We know it is Grandma with Chief Mountain in the background. Although Chief Mountain is in Montana, it is just a few miles from the Canadian border. This view is from the north side of the mountain, in Canada.

The mystery is when this picture was taken. The place looks very green and the clouds look very heavy, certainly greener and heavier than I would expect southern Alberta to look during a typical summer family reunion. Any guesses on the month and year?

John posted a bunch of pictures on Facebook from a reunion in Alberta this summer. You must be logged into Facebook to see the pictures, but he has about 100 from the reunion (and about 20 more from Glacier Park and Provo). The pictures are a lot of fun to browse, but one stood out to me as reminiscent of Grandma's picture above.

There's Chief Mountain in the background. And, might that be the same wooden fence that Grandma was standing next to? Who knows; they all look the same. But, it provides a nice visual connection between then and now.

I should note that, although I did adjust the colors/contrast slightly from John's original picture (thank you Easy.Filter), this is pretty much what his picture looked like when he posted it. The grass in this picture and the absence of clouds are what I would expect to see in that area in the summer. Thanks, John, for posting the pictures.

For those of us who do not get to the Cardston area much -- I last went with my siblings and Grandma and Grandpa in the early 1980s -- here is a satellite image (thanks, Google) that includes Chief Mountain (marked "A"). Where is the area that Grandpa is from?

If you have any old pictures, programs, flyers, etc. from a family reunion that you would like to contribute to Grandpa's Apple Press, please let me know.

UPDATE

Andrew Bore, who also contributed to a previous post, added some very helpful context to this one.

"Rob, my guess is the picture was taken in the Leavitt or Mountain View area. J.R. and Clara lived there when my grandmother (Aunt Fern) was born. This may have been at a Coombs reunion. The homestead is roughly in the middle of the area marked by the three highways. Leavitt and Mountain View are both on the highway heading west from Cardston. Glenwood, where the Stutz' also had a farm, is near the top of the map."

Thanks for the info, Andrew! If anyone has the addresses or a mapped location for these family farms, send them my way and I will post them.

John produces a slide of this picture that reveals when it was taken, which we discuss at Mystery Picture 091010 - Revisited.

Then and Now - Moss Mustache

Did I mention that I love getting surprise packages with family history to digitize? Well, today was my lucky day. Aunt Annette sent me some pictures (thanks, Annette!) for the flatbed scanner, some newer and some older.

One thing that struck me, though, was a picture reminiscent of one from an earlier project when I scanned some of Grandpa's slides. Grandpa's picture showed Grandpa and three of his kids wearing moss mustaches and beards.

That picture, taken in 1971 (at least, the slide was developed in 1971) was like this picture from 1982 that Annette sent of four of her kids wearing moss mustaches!

What a great family tradition! I don't know that I have ever seen a picture with my siblings wearing moss mustaches, but you can bet I will try to get one of my kids doing it.

A note about the image quality. Grandpa's picture is from a Kodachrome slide, which held up favorably compared to the later print, even though the print is more than 10 years younger.

TIP: Use the most original source material possible, preferably the original film or slides, when digitizing family photos.

UPDATE

GAP revisits moss mustaches and brings them into the 21st century!