New Haven 1955

I'm cleaning out my main office; my brother's coming and I've got to make a little room.  Here's a big photo album from the 1950s.  Of course, I have to look at it and pick out a picture before I put it away.  I've used this album for the Glendora pictures.  I joined the Glendora Historical Society btw and get their mailings.  The place is part of the greater LA contiguous city in the San Gabriel Valley.  But somehow it had a small town feel to it when we visited last February.  The Historical Society emphasizes this, July 4 parade and the primo seats in front of the Historical Society which is the old firehouse.

This picture dates from that era but is clearly taken in New Haven, I'm guessing the summer of 1955.  When my mom was older, she swore that she took us to New Haven every summer.  Not true, maybe when I was little like this.  I remember a trip when I was in kindergarten, then one in 5th grade and that was it.  My parents made sure that my grandparents came regularly to visit.  I totally get that, it is very hard to travel with small children.  We didn't!

My mother (of the small waistline) on the left with me in front of her,  She's holding my brother who I am sure is going to take off the minute he can.  Her sister Ruth on the right, with my cousin Mary Ann (a few years older than me, eyes closed) and her son Malcolm (same age as me) on her lap.  Their mother, my grandmother Regina with glasses and big bow maybe kneeling behind us.  And the other lady?  I'm guessing it's my other grandmother Betty maybe come down from Boston.  I've asked Mary Ann (same one) she will know if it's somebody else.  But she's dressed as Betty would with the belted sundress with the understated pattern, matching jacket and the necklace. And she's looking at her grandchildren.

There was quite a disparity at that time between the class status and assets of my grandparents with my paternal grandparents very much better off.  Harvard, insurance executive, etc.  My maternal grandparents had nothing really.  But go back to when my grandmother was young and the situation would have been reversed.

UPDATE: I knew Mary Ann would know.  That's Aunt Dede in the middle.  Gertrude Baumann Kleiner,  My maternal grandfather's sister who was quite close with the family.  Makes  perfect sense.  More sense than Betty coming down from Boston.   She also thinks that the location was the back yard on Foote Street in Hamden.