The photo above was most likely taken in Humboldt. Dorothy Ann is in the back row on the right. In front, left to right, are Merry, Margaret (in the buggy) and Jean. I don't know who the other children in the photo are, but probably they were neighbors in Humboldt.
This and the one below are the only photos I have of Margaret as a baby. Margaret was a special child. Her start in life had been precarious, and she was threatened more than once with death, but she recovered. I'm sure my mother was overwhelmed with the care of four little girls, and especially careful with Margaret since she had been so close to being lost more than once. Margaret was born in December of 1929, the year of Black Friday and the stock market crash that began a decade or more of the Great Depression.
In the rare photo above, taken in Humboldt when Margaret was a baby, she is held by Jean, with Merry sitting on the right. This photo and the one above are the only two pictures I have of Margaret when she was a baby.
In the photo above, which was probably taken in Sac City or in Humboldt, on the left is Margaret at about the age of 8 years, Dorothy Ann is sitting on the pile of snow, and above her are Merry and Jean. Since I do have so few photos of Margaret in her early years, I have chosen to put them in this post (even though doing so is inserting a 'flash-back' to life in Iowa, before the family moved to Chicago.)
In the photo above, Aunt Rachel, Margaret, Wilma and Merry are enjoying some kind of summer fair or other in Chicago before I was born. There is a roller-coaster in the background. I have several shots with Margaret included, but pictures of Margaret by herself don't seem to exist, unless her children have some that I have not seen before. (This photo is of intrigues me because Merry's picture above is nearly the 'spitting image' of her own daughter Bonnie when Bonnie was about 10 or 11 years old.)
This picture of Margaret (between Wayne and Wilma) is about the age of 13, and would have been taken just a year or two before the family moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, when I was 4 1/2, and Margaret would have been 15 1/2.
In this photo taken near Boulder Beach Resort on Potato Lake, Jean, Merry and Margaret are showering a young Boulder Beach guy with lots of attention. This photo was probably taken after the family had moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, because Margaret looks like she is of high school age, and she attended McKinley High School in Cedar Rapids, after we moved in 1944.
A story I remember about Margaret in Chicago has to do with the time when I was born. Until I was born, all of my sisters were born at home, with help from a local doctor. I was the first in my family to be born in a hospital. I was born at St. Joseph's Hospital in Chicago, and in those days, mothers and babies stayed in the hospital for 10 days after the birth. Since I was born just two days before Margaret's 11th birthday, my mother was not able to be at home to put on a nice birthday party for my sister. And, when I was brought home, it was just shortly before Christmas, so Margaret really didn't get a lot of attention for that birthday. I'm sure it was a big disappointment for her, but once I came home, she probably was fascinated at having a baby in the house, and I hope she came to enjoy having me around!
I have posted photos of Margaret with my other sisters, and those can be seen by going back a few posts.
More pictures of Margaret will be posted with the stories about Cedar Rapids, since she attended high school there, met Clarence J. (Snooky) Brookner who was a star football player at McKinley High School, and eventually eloped with him... There will be plenty of photos of our family life in Cedar Rapids, as we kept adding kids to the mix!
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