This is for the 10th edition of Smile for the Camera – “Costume”:

Whenever I think of a “distinctive style of dress” concerning my family’s genealogy, I always think of my g-g-grandmother, Irene Mary (Beckman) Seibert.

Here she is as a child, in one of her more distinctive outfits:

(Photo taken at Elrod Bros. studio at 313 W. Jefferson St., Louisville, KY)

is a 1941 staged photo of my grandfather, Floyd Cummings, pretending to be drunk with two friends, sisters Mary O’Fay Fee (on the left) and Renee O’Fay Fee (on the right). The car pictured is my grandfather’s first car, a 1940 Studebaker.

The first time I saw this photo, a few years ago, it cracked me up. I wasn’t entirely sure it was a staged photo or if he really was drunk, but my grandfather assured me that it was staged; just he and a few friends having some fun.

It’s one of my all-time favorite photos of him, just because it shows his wonderful sense of humor.

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This is for the 6th Edition of Smile For The Camera: Funny Bone

In thinking about this edition of Smile for the Camera, I couldn’t pin down just one photo. I have a few favorites, and decided to show the best of the best with you. All of them are special to me because they either show an ancestor when they were young, or because it is the only photo I have of that ancestor.

This is a photo of my great-grandmother, Thelma Corrinne (Seibert) Furry (1910-2000). She was 15 at the time. The reason I like this photo is because when I first saw it, I had never seen a photo of her between the ages of 2 and 30, so it was nice to see what she looked like when she was a teenager:

I have quite a few photos of my great-grandmother Drusilla Irene (Rix) Beckman (1868-1955) when she was 75 years and older, but this is the only photo I have of her when she was young. I’m not sure of when it was taken (anyone want to take a stab?), but I’m guessing that is was about 1890:

This is a photo of the Jacob Seibert household at 1214 E. Jacob Street, Louisville, Kentucky, taken sometime between 1890 and 1910 (Again, anyone want to take a stab at the date?). I can’t identify any of the people who are in this photo but I can only assume that it is of Jacob Seibert and his wife and children, which would make it the only photo of that family. If I could only pin down the date of the photo I could probably identify the people in the photo based on the ages, but until then, I can only guess:

This is a treasured photo of four generations my grandfather’s family, taken circa 1921. This is the only photo of my g-g-grandmother Isabella (Wishart) Cummings (b. 1863), on the right, and her mother Catherine (Hodge) Wishart (b. 1838), on the left. The baby is my grandfather, Floyd Ellwood Cummings (b. 1921). The man is Edward Blythaway Cummings (1893-1953), Floyd’s dad: