1969 Family Pictures

Family Pictures from 1969

On this page you will find the pictures of our family that I didn't take and which, consequently, were not part of my own album pages. As near as I and my sister can determine, the pictures on this page were taken sometime in 1969. Picture descriptions will be as accurate as possible, given that either I didn't take the picture, or wasn't present when it was taken, or was too young to remember when/where it was taken. Such actual dates as are specified were either written on the pictures or can be inferred.

March 16: At Judy's House

I can be specific on the date as two of these pictures had that date on them. The other two seem to have been taken at the same time.

This is Judy and Bob's house in Burlington, NC.
This is another view of the house, and in the driveway we can see Bob's car and, behind it, my Dad's car- the white Oldsmobile Starfire.

At first I thought that the two cars in the driveway were mine and my Dad's, but then we probably wouldn't have driven to Judy's house separately. But even though Bob's car looks like mine at the time, the front tag that says "BURLINGTON" means that it isn't. Further, at this particular time I was at the Civil Affairs School down at Fort Gordon, Georgia.

The two pictures here of Bob sitting on the back steps of the house he and Judy have in Burlington did not have dates on them, but their proximity to the other two pictures above in the albums I have says to me that they were taken during the same visit that my parents made to Judy and Bob.

As to why my parents chose this particular time to visit, I can only assume that it is so Mom can give Judy what help she can, as my sister is in the final days of her first pregnancy. I have never asked my sister about this, but knowing Ted's actual birthdate, I would assume that the "due" date was right around the time of this visit.

April: The Newborn Ted at Judy's House

None of the pictures in this section had actual dates on them, but since Ted was born on March 26, and based on my limited knowledge of what 2-3 week old babies look like, I am think that mid-to-late April is a good time marker for this series of photographs. I haven't seen any photographs taken in the hospital, but I would assume that recording for posterity Judy in a hospital room was rather low on anyone's to-do list.

Judy and the Newborn Ted

These days, just about everything is recorded in photos or video. I simply can't imagine a pregnancy or delivery that isn't so memorialized, what with the plethora of smartphone about. Even years ago, before smartphones, digital cameras offered a quick, easy way to record all kinds of life events- important and not-so-important. And even before that, film cameras and film cameras were widespread. But perhaps not so far back as 1969.

It's probably for that reason that in the pictures my parents left there are none that I can find of Judy's actual pregancy or delivery. In fact, the first picture I have of Judy and Ted is probably the one at left. Obviously, the doting new mother and her offspring is a classic. I don't know, of course, who took the picture, but I will assume that it was my Dad. They last visited in the middle of March, and this must now be past mid-April, so I assume they went home and returned.

In the group of pictures I have, all but one of them is 4:3, but one of them was square. My Dad did have a Polaroid camera, and perhaps he used that to take this picture of Judy and her new son.

The next four pictures show a real change in Ted's young life:

I am not sure, and either my sister or my nephew can correct me, but I believe these two picture feature Bob's brother as he's getting intoduced to the baby Ted:

Finally for this group of pictures we have two more that I deduce were taken at the same time- either the same day or during the same visit Mom and Dad made to Judy's house:

May: Baby Ted at Judy's House

Ted is a little more than a month old at the beginning of this month, and turns two months towards the end. I will freely admit that, never having had children, I'm not very familiar with what babies look like at two months or four or six. I find myself wishing that I had an exact date for all my Dad's pictures; that's one virtue of taking pictures with today's cameras and phones- pictures are automatically tagged with the exact date and time they are taken. Most times, they are also geo-tagged so you know exactly where they were taken.

But I don't, so unless my sister finds that some of these pictures are mis-allocated, I just have to go with supposition as to when and where they were taken, since none of them had any annotations on them. To me, Ted looks like he is a couple of months old, so I think putting them here in May is a pretty close approximation.

The first group of pictures are all of my sister with newborn Ted:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

In these two pictures, Ted looks to be about the same, so I am placing them here in May. Both were taken at the Somerset Drive house, so I assume Judy and Bob made a trip down there, at the same time as my Aunt Marguerite was visiting my Dad and Mom. That's my aunt in the left-hand picture holding the baby Ted:

Summer: Infant Ted at Judy's House

In these pictures, assigning even approximate dates gets tricky- although my sister's memory may help eventually for me to more precisely date these pictures of Ted as he grows. My one guideline, really, is that, on average, babies get their first teeth (or, rather, the first of the teeth they are already born with start to appear) around the age of six months. This is just an average, but I have nothing better to go on (not having been present at all during these few months). So, since Ted was born in late March, I am assuming that any pictures that show him with teeth must have been taken from September onward.

Now, as far as the Summer (June-July-August) is concerned, I can't really distinguish between when the pictures were taken- unless there was a date marked on them.

For example, take the picture of my Mom holding Ted shown at left. This was one of the few pictures that had a date written on it- July 10, 1969. So, trusting that date, we can start to organize some of the other pictures.

I also used the fact that in the picture at left, Ted's hair has gotten long, so any pictures I have where Ted looks about the same but his hair is shorter were probably taken before the picture at left- perhaps sometime in June.

For example, we have these four pictures, all taken indoors at Judy's house, that feature Ted in perhaps embarrassing detail:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Sometime in June, I am assuming, my parents made a trip up to Burlington, and there are some pictures from that visit:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

The two pictures seem to have been taken at the same general time, although I do not know who all the people are- aside from Judy, Bob, Ted, and my Mom:

Now we can move on to pictures taken, I think, after the one above of my Mom holding Ted. He appears to be the same or a little older in these pictures. For example, there are two pictures of someone (I assume Judy) putting Ted and his carrier into a car. First, I was struck by the fact that there were no visible seatbelts, which means that the car was a 1967 model or earlier, as seatbelts were not mandated until 1968 (and their actual use not until the 1980s). I have focused in on the logo you can see in the passenger door in this picture of Ted ready for a drive, but the picture quality doesn't permit me to read the name. I tried searching for the shape, but with no luck. Perhaps my sister can eventually identify the vehicle. There are also no location clues, although the picture wasn't taken in Charlotte as we had no white fence with vertical boards.

The car was a stick shift, which is about all I can tell. I was also struck by the car seat Ted was in, as it was quite different than the car seats used today, which are much larger and more involved. Also, I think that today's guidelines are that kids in car seats are routinely put in the back seat when there is one.

Now we come to a series of pictures that are dated with August 2, 1969. These were taken in the Somerset Drive house in Charlotte, and include a picture of Judy doing some trimming:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Fall: Infant Ted at Judy's House

None of the pictures in this group have dates, but all seem to have been taken sometime in late summer or fall. The major clue here is that in many of the pictures of Ted, he appears to have exposed at least some of his baby teeth, and since he is about six months old now it is a reasonable assumption that those pictures were taken around this time.

Sometime in the fall, I must have come down from Fort Lee for a visit, as there are a couple of pictures of me amongst the ones in my Dad's photo albums that seem to have been taken at this time. For example, there is this one of me holding Ted and also one where I appear to be holding a kitten that Judy must have had. I am not sure who took these pictures, although I assume it was my Dad. I did not begin taking pictures myself until the following year, when my Dad would give me his Argus camera to take to Korea with me.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

As for the rest of the pictures from the fall of 1969, they were taken at Judy's house, at Bob's parents' house, and in Charlotte, but there seems to be no particularly good reason to group them that way. And since I cannot even really date them precisely or put them in time sequence, I will just put them all in a slideshow so you can go through them easily.

To view the slideshow, just click on the image at left and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.

Christmas

This is Ted's first Christmas, and I have come down to North Carolina on leave from Fort Lee, Virginia to celebrate Christmas with my family.

The Somerset Drive Christmas Tree

Not many of the pictures that I've allocated to 1969 were actually labeled with a date, but this series of pictures is an exception. All of them were labeled with either "12-25-1969" or, in two cases, "12-26-1969".

To begin with, I am not at all sure whether I came to Charlotte for the holiday, and then traveled with my parents up to Judy's, or whether I stopped in Burlington- staying either with my sister, with the Barbours, or in a motel. Perhaps my sister remembers, but I have quite forgotten.

What I do know is that the first picture dated "12-25" was taken at Somerset Drive, and that picture is at left. I assume that, since there are many more Christmas Day pictures that were obviously taken in Burlington, that my Dad must have taken a picture of the tree at their house before they headed up to Burlington. I imagine this was early in the morning, as it takes over an hour to get up to Judy's.

Again, I don't know if I drove up with my parents, but that would be my guess.

That aside, we all ended up on Christmas Morning up in Burlington where it will be Ted's first Christmas- at nine months of age.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

I am not sure whether the pictures were taken at the elder Barbour's house (from the furniture, this would be my guess) or at the apartment that Judy and Bob have. In the pictures, you will see Ted, of course, Judy and Bob, my mother and I, and the elder Mr. Barbour.

So you can look at these pictures quickly, with a minimum of mouse clicks, I have put them in a slideshow.

There are two more pictures from this time period, and both of them were dated "12-26", so I assume they were taken either on my parents' return to Charlotte late on Christmas Day (and mis-labeled by my Dad) or they were actually taken the next day.

This is not a very good picture of the Somerset Drive house; it was obviously taken late in the day.
This view looks past our garage towards the back yard. A dismal day, and there seems to be ice on the trees.

The Garden on Somerset Drive

I have assumed that the five pictures in this section were taken in 1969, as they were in the same album as many of the pictures above. It doesn't really matter, though; we had the garden for quite a few years, and so these pictures could have been taken in any particular summer between the late 1950s to the early 1970s. The latest date for the garden would have been 1971, as I don't recall seeing the garden when I went home in the Fall of 1972 after my Dad's untimely passing.

This must be from early in the year as we've prepared the garden for planting but we don't yet see much in the ground.
This picture looks to the back, northwest corner of the garden. This where we set up the sieve that we used to sort out good soil from weeds and such. Some rows have been planted.

This is the back corner with the sieve set up. Our compost pile is at the left.
This is the back of the garden where we have planted, I believe, beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers. That's the Britt's back yard next door.

This is the top of the garden with onions (green and bulb), peppers, and tomatoes planted. That is the Britt's house and garage in the background.

At the Saddle Club

Due mostly to their proximity to the other pictures from this year in the photo albums that were left in my care, I am assuming that these pictures, taken at the Saddle Club where Judy keeps a horse, are from 1969.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

I know little about the horses that my sister owned over time, so I have not tried to add any narrative to these pictures. Perhaps my sister will be able to provide some detail and, if she does, I may choose to replace this slide show with individual pictures so I can more fully describe them. In any event, what information she gives me will certainly be added here, if only as supporting narrative.

So you can look at these pictures quickly, with a minimum of mouse clicks, I have put them in a slideshow.

Miscellaneous and Unknown

Finally, for this year, I have some pictures that my best guess tells me were taken this year, although only one of them had a date on it. I can't date them precisely, and there's one of them I don't know much about, but here goes:

This is the picture I know the least about. I am assuming that the youngster in the foreground is Ted, based on my assumption that he is wearing an outfit that he appears to be wearing in other pictures from this year.

But I do not know (or remember) who the woman is or who the other youngster might be.

This picture shows my Aunt Marguerite and my Uncle Bud in my aunt's house in North Muskegon. I might have thought that I took this picture on a visit to Muskegon during my schooling at Fort Harrison early this year, but I actually did not have a camera until I left for Korea in 1970. So I assume my Dad took it, although I don't known when he visited Muskegon.
This is the one picture that was dated ("7-20-69") and it shows the magnolia tree in the front yard on Somerset Drive and the juniper at the corner of our driveway and the street.

This is my Mom in the Somerset Drive living room. She is sewing, which was her hobby. The hallway to the bedrooms is behind her, and the entrance to the dining room is as well.
Here, my sister is unwrapping a package in the living room. It looks as if it is wrapped for Christmas, but it is more likely a birthday gift, since the Christmas tree is not on the table beside her.
In this picture, my Dad has photographed my Mom down by the juniper bush in our front yard. This is obviously during the summer.

Also in one of the albums, amidst the other 1969 pictures, was this one of the spring blooms alongside the Britt's house.

The last picture that I've allocated to 1969 was a picture that my Dad apparently took at the nearby Park Road Shopping Center. It shows a central section of the arc-shaped strip center, featuring the Penney's and, down the way a bit, a suburban branch of the Ivey's department store downtown:

So that you can compare this picture to something, I went to Google Maps and grabbed a street view taken from approximately the same location at that shopping center (which is still there). Of course, Penney's is defunct, but I have found out that Ivey's, too, is permanently closed as a retail chain. Blackhawk Hardware is where the Penney's used to be.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

1969 Family Pictures