Strong Women With No Apologizes

My Aunt Louisa Cullum - a strong and proud factoy worker

My good friend Judy Keithly Hopps just sent out a message on Facebook about the passing of her mother  Anna Marguerite Keithley.  Anna was a strong woman.  She lived in a time when strong women were not always appreciated. They were sometimes just ignored or forgotten.  I have so many memories of her and her quiet spirit.  She was never outspoken.  She just lived her live as best as she could. She raised three children on her own.  This was during the Ozzie and Harriet years when we watched ideal families on TV and when the image was so distorted that there was no reality for us to see.  But we all looked for that reality and wondered why we were different.  We weren't different.  The image was different and wrong.  

Anna Marguerite Keithly along with my Aunt Louisa Cullum (in the photo above) both worked in a shoe factory that was little more than a sweat shop.  They worked for minimum wages and worked hard.  They did not expect a hand out or a free meal.  They worked hard to pay their rent and put food on the table.  My Aunt was a divorced woman with no children.  She lived with her mother for the majority of her live.  She worked extremely hard cementing counters on the back of three buckle arctic boots that the factory had contracted to make for the U.S. military.  She worked in an factory with no air conditioning putting steaming hot cement on the back of the boots where she would place the back support called a counter.  The conveyor belt never stopped running and the were forced to keep up with production.  Yes it was funny watching Lucy eating chocolates on a conveyor belt on I Love Lucy.  It was not so funny watching women burn themselves from the hot glue and being afraid to stop the conveyor belt.  

Anna Keithley had no time to complain on the job either.  Like my Aunt she also could not stop the conveyor belt.  She had a family to feed.  She had rent to pay.  She had responsibilities that she never took lightly.  I mourn with my friend Judy today for her loss.   And I admire people like Anna Keithley and my Aunt Louisa Cullum. They would never meet societies norm today.  They did not have college educations.  Hell my Aunt did not have a high school education.  And they did jobs then that a lot of  people would not do today.  Those jobs are now out sourced to foreign countries where strong women are working for slave wages because they have responsibilities.  Look at the labels on your clothing and shoes and think of the people who make them.  They deserve our highest respect.  

Rest in peace Anna. I plan to attend your memorial service on Friday.  I am sure my Aunt Louisa and the other ladies and men who worked in that shoe factory have already greeted you in Heaven.

Waiting for the photo

I am still thinking about photography today.   I wrote a blog about old photos yesterday and this is a follow up to that blog.  I have mentioned any number of times how much I enjoy taking photos.  My Aunt Louise bought me my first camera when I was around nine.  I wrote about that in my very first blog here several years ago. I found the photo above of my exact camera on google.  I was surprised to find the exact one as "Imperial" is not exactly a well known brand.    I was thinking today about how photography has changed in the digital age.  There was an excitement and anticipation about taking photos pre digital.   You would have to go out and buy a roll of film.  I used to like to use Kodak 620 Verichrome Pan.   It would cost me almost a weeks allowance for the roll of film. Ansco film was a little less expensive so I used that often also.   620 Kodacolor was out of my range.   So like most people back then I shot my photos in black and white.

That little bright yellow, red and block box held a weekends worth of fun for me.  The film came wrapped in a metallic little bad to protect it.  You had to break the seal on the side of the film to open the roll and then place it in your camera.  Then you had to manually attached it to the spool inside your camera.  And finally you had to  wind the film into position until you saw the number one in the back of the little window in your camera.  It you didn't get it set right you might only get half a photo.  And who wanted to waste a photo when you only got twelve exposures to a roll of film.

It seems impossible now but a little roll of twelve exposure film would last a long time.  I remember a sixth grade field trip to Washington D.C. and I used one roll of film to document the day.  I came home with a photo of the White House, a photo of the Washington Monument and a photo taken from the top of the Washington Monument.  I had a photo of a friend taken inside the school bus.  There were no selfies, no special angles, or multiple shots of the same place.  But I did have a full days experience documented on a roll of twelve exposure film.  And the anticipation set in, waiting to see the developed photos.  I would take my roll of film down to Mrs. Waller at The Harford Stationery Store on Washington Street in my home town of Havre de Grace. She would then have it sent over to Pershing Studio a couple of blocks away for development.  It usually took four or five days to have the completed photos returned.  And Mrs. Waller looked at every photo that came into her store.  And she would let you know if she liked them or not.  There are no secrets in a small town.

A few years later when I was in junior high school Polaroid came out with something magical.  They created a Polaroid Land Camera that was affordable for everyone.  Their original camera was quite expensive and was not made for preteens.  But the Polaroid Swinger was made for my generation.  At least that's what their commercial said with swinging sixties music and young people taking photos a party.  I just had to have one.  It was the number one item at the top of my Christmas wish list.

Opening it up Christmas morning was so exciting.  I put that first roll in film in the camera and proceeded to take some of the worst photos of all time.  It was a terrible camera.  You had to pull the photo out of the side of the camera.  Then you had to wait 60 seconds, then peel open the photo.  Then you had to apply a special chemical to the photo to protect it.  And the photos really weren't worth protecting.   But I never noticed that fact.  It was just too exciting to be able to see your photo 60 seconds after taking it.  I wasted a lot of allowance money on Polaroid Swinger film.   My Aunt Louise who bought me my first camera also thought it was fantastic and bought one for herself.

Mad Magazine had a spot on satire of the Polaroid Land Camera rage.  It was the 60 second disappointment.   Of course today we can be disappointed or delighted with our photographs in a matter of a second.  It's almost instantaneous disappointed or delight.  You can delete, edit, flip, and share your photos in a moment.  Some of the excitement of waiting is gone.  And now instead of enjoying places I am are visiting or taking time to talk with people on my photo adventure I am too busy taking a couple of hundred photos a day.  I don't get to really appreciate a lot of places I visit until I get home and look at the photos on my big screen television. It's the digital age.   Time to end this blog.  I feel the need to take a selfie.

The Old and The New

It's always interesting to go back to my original home town.  I lived in Havre de Grace, Maryland for the majority of my first forty years.  I moved seventeen years ago.  There have been a lot of changes in those seventeen years and each time I return I become more aware of them. When I see my two adult daughters I do not really see two adult young ladies.  I still see the two little girls that changed my life.  It's much the same when I return home to Havre de Grace.  I don't see the condo's on the water front, or the antique shops on the main street.  I still see the old Five and Ten Store and the clothing stores on Washington Street.  And when I drive down to the water front I see the old gravel road and the shade trees behind the Seneca Cannery instead of the three story high condo's cluttering the view.

I am sure the folks who live in the condo's have a wonderful view of the Susquehanna River.  And I am sure they have lovely homes.  But I am also sure they have no idea of the memories and the history that is attached to the area their homes are now built on.

The old Seneca Cannery is now an antiques mall.  It lends its name to the housing development just behind it on the water front - Seneca Pointe Condominiums.  My mother worked at the cannery when she was a teenager during the World War II years.  They canned tomatoes here.  She only worked there a short period of time but she loved to tell stories about it.  In the basement area in the back of the cannery German prisoners of war were held.  I doubt very much the folks at Seneca Point Condo's have any idea of this history.  And in reality the entire story might be an exaggeration.  But my mother talked about it from time to time so it became a reality to me.  My mother wanted to write and probably should have.  This all may have been part of a creative novel in her head that never got written on paper.  Today with the internet and blogs some of her stories can now finally be put into words.  So rest assured residents of Seneca Pointe, there might not have actually been German prisoners of war historically at your door step.  But then again maybe there were.

My father's sister Louise was one of my favorite Aunts.  She was a very excitable woman who tended to talk to fast, stutter a little if she got excited, and was full of life.  I loved her.  She and her daughter Peggy were the only two people I knew who talked as fast as I do.  When I would spend time with the two of them we all talked even faster.  We seemed to bring that out in each other. The only time I ever knew Aunt Louise to be calm was when she was fishing.  She could sit for hours on the bank of the river and calmly wait for the fish to bite.  Right at the point here where the cars are parked by the condo's I remember Aunt Louise sitting one afternoon.  There were a couple of shade trees here and she was relaxing under them with her fishing pole in hand.  In her other hand she had a large stick that she would shake at the ground from time to time.  I asked her what she was doing with the stick. She told me ssshhh!   Then she whispered to me there is a big black snake over in that bush, but there is also a big bass jumping out there just off the point.  I'm not letting that snake run me off until I catch that bass.  Aunt Louise won the battle.  She caught the bass and the snake finally crawled away in fear of the stick.  No one at Seneca Pointe Condominiums will ever know the story. Sadly no one's excitable Aunt will ever be able to relax under the trees and fish here any longer either.  My Aunt was the first of several in my family to be diagnosed with alzheimer's disease.  Her stories were lost forever buried deep in her brain somewhere.  But if the folks in the condo's want to here some of her stories I still have them.

There was an old cement wall along the cove behind the cannery. You could sit on the wall and let your feet cool in the water or you could fish from the wall.  It was almost at water level so it was not very tall.    At one time there was a very old and weather beaten picnic table next to the wall  that my family used for a Saturday afternoon family reunion.  My fathers family were a fun but a wild bunch at times.  They were Irish.  They liked to drink and they liked to fight.  They were a true stereotype.  My father had a small runabout boat with an Evinrude motor behind it.  He brought the boat around, from Jeff Baldwin's old docks just around the bend from Seneca Pointe, to take a couple of his sisters out for a ride on the river.  The rest of us waited on the bank by the picnic table waiting to see what would happen.  Something always happened when the family got together.  While they were out on the river another boat came speeding buy and hit them with the wake from his engine causing my Dad's boat to rock very hard.  My one  aunt could not swim and it terrified her.  She raised her fist and shook it at other boat and screamed some words that I need not repeat here.  Not knowing what he was getting himself into the man shook his fist and yelled back and proceeded to follow my fathers boat back to the shore.  My father was a short man being only five foot seven inches.  His two sisters were even shorter.  So I am sure this man was not afraid to argue with this crew.  But they were fighting Irish.  When my Aunt Anna Mary, all five foot three of her, got out of my father's boat and stepped on the shore she was shaking with anger.  The other man still wanted to argue.  Aunt Mary reached down and grabbed him by his hair and tried to drag him out of his boat.  It took three people to restrain her.  She had a hold of his shirt and his arm when they pulled her off.  Two other Aunts came down to join in the "fun" along with my Dad and two of his brothers.  The poor man in the other boat luckily got his engine started and pulled away with his boat with all but his dignity still intact.

My mother also had a sister named Louise.  This Aunt Louise was as different from my father's sister as possible.  She worked very hard all of her life.  For twenty nine years she worked on an assembly line at a shoe factory making combat boots for a government contract.  She had one week of vacation each year.  For many years she never traveled any where and spent most of her vacation at home.  She and her cousin Mary, who also worked at the shoe factory, liked to spend some of the vacation time fishing right here where the Seneca Pointe condominiums are located today.  If a black snake crawled by, she would have left the bass in the river, and fled the area along with Mary.  If some boat would speed by and splash her with it's wake she would either blame herself for setting to close to the river bank, or would have just laughed and waved.  She and Mary would relax by the shore and talk for hours because they knew they had to return to the factory the next week.

Today the condominiums cover the river bank behind the old Seneca Cannery.  There are many families living there now and I am sure each family has it's own share of stories.  They are bringing a new history to the shore line.  I will probably never know their stories nor will they ever know my families stories.  It doesn't really matter.  I really dislike the condominiums.  The block the view of the river and change the appearance of the area.  They will be gone one day also and someone will have stories of grandparents and aunts who lived there to share.  For me, when I return to Havre de Grace and drive down past them my mind flashes back to family and friends who played there and relaxed there.  The condo's may change the view but they can't change the memories.

This is my Aunt Jenny and my Aunt Louise, two of my Dad's sisters at my high school graduation.   Black snakes and boaters beware!  But who could really be afraid of these two beautiful ladies.

This is my other Aunt Louise, my mother's sister.  She would avoid an argument at almost any cost and blame herself for any conflicts that might occur.  She worked hard and had a heart as big as the heavens.