TBT - 1940s Army Air Force

As I have been dabbling in the Throwback Thursdays, perhaps a blog of the FB post is now in order...

FB Post Here  

The other day, in a filing cabinet was an envelope of quite a few 8X10 pictures was found. And many pictures I do not remember - so scanning commenced.

Lower right is dad, in the USAAF (United States Army Air Forces;  the USAF was created in Sept.1947) is on the lower right, Grandma Villers (Agnes) standing behind him. As he enlisted in the USAAF in Oct 1945, I believe that this is in the Summer of 1946.

Are the three stripes for rank of Private 1st Class? I guess this to be in Steubenville, Ohio. Would love to know more!

SOOC - Historical 1945

Straight Out of the Camera - SOOC returns - since I am the photo archivist of the family, I have been sorting, scanning and filing many photo prints taken by my grandfather from 1920 until his passing in 1981. Here is a print that has merely been scanned but offers a profound look at an important event. The place is along 1645 Oregon Avenue in Steubenville, Ohio; the girl my Aunt Theresa with neighborhood kids; and the newspaper was the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which suggests the date I believe to be 15 August 1945. History in the making...

Shadow Shot Sunday - Back Yard, 1947

Shadow Shot Sunday 2 allows us to look for shadowy subjects be they grand or prosaic. I decided to look back to the year 1947 (a guess) to the back yards of two abodes in the LaBelle View neighborhood in the steeltown of Steubenville, Ohio.

To the left is my grandmother Agnes, performing the task of drying clothes on a clothesline outside, probably before the days of affordable clothes dryers. To the right is a neighbor, also doing the same thing. It appears that she lived in the garage apartment on La Belle Court, the back porch facing the back side of my grandparents  Oregon Avenue house. Shadows and smiles make for a nice day, housework or not :)

Whimsical Windows - Pigeon Style Parking

For this week's architectural themed meme Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors, I am posting a subject that has been seen before that is quite unique. I like the image so much, and the now retro 1950s autos, it is the desktop picture on my computer :)

This is a picture taken by my grandfather in 1955 in the steeltown of Steubenville Ohio. This car-park apparatus referred to as Pigeon Hole Parking, where a lift device moves horizontally and vertically to place your car in a discreet spot and could be easily retrieved when your shopping or errands were complete.

In the background is the now shuttered Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel mill. When I was in college in the city on the 1970s, this mill was busy place and lots of parking available. Not as busy these days, sixty years removed from 1955...

Shadow Shot Sunday - Snowless Spring in 1948

Grandpa, Easter Sunday 1948. No snow!

Aunt Terry, Easter Sunday 1948, in the Spring

Shadow Shot Sunday 2 is back, and the snow sits in our yard at about the same height it did one month ago, unmelted on one of the coldest February in Connecticut. So, I looked for pics of a cold day without snow - thus I revert back to what I believe to be Easter, 28 March 1948. There are no leaves in Steubenville Ohio and no snow. I'd long for no snow on the ground and the end - of this season...

Shadow Shot Sunday - Ohio Valley Collegiate Shadows

For Shadow Shot Sunday 2, I again look at decades past and places with a hint of shadow - and memories. 

I have been looking at many a digitized print that take me to my alma mater Franciscan University in Ohio.I haven't been there in 15 years (and Patti is still amazed that she agreed to take that 1999 drive with me to that mythical place called Steubenville :) 

Recently, I was contacted by a classmate who also graduated with me back then - and this prompted me to peruse tho my photo archives from back in the day. At the top, I receive my diploma; in 1999, the campus here prompting shadowy memories then - and now...

Pics, L-R: I receive my diploma, 8 May 1977; US-22 Gateway to Steubenville. August 1999, Chapel, 1999; Student Center, 1999; Patti with bookstore bruin, 1999

Whimsical Windows - Labor Day movement mystery

Toby's fun meme Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors is back the day before Labor Day in the US and Canada (Labour Day?) and windows are peripheral to the scene which is a mystery to me. So I guess that this pic of my day amidst a labor type event in Steubenville in 1938 with my father, aged nine. Dad looks winsome as that man in white looks irritated withe my photographer grandfather (I assume the guy kept walking...). Of course in front of the building's windows and doors is a labor demonstration of a sort with the FDR era NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) signs displayed. Who was Clyde Armstrong and why the demonstration on a hot Summer day? These are myriad mysteries - however I enjoy the look back at this long ago event...

Shadow Shot Sunday - Easter past

For Shadow Shadow Sunday 2, I revert to Easter past and early Spring shadows, spanning the 20 years from 1948 to 1968. The earlier pics showcase my dad and his sister, Aunt Terry on Easter Sunday 1948 in front of their homestead at 1645 Oregon Avenue in Steubenville Ohio. They are dressed in their finery including hats and suits.

The newer photo is their dad and my namesake, Grandpa (aka: Ralph, the Sage of Steubenville) in front of our East Hartford home in 1968. All were dressed nicely in honor of the beauty of the day and the new life that Easter represents...

Whimsical Windows - Tinsel

The holidays have been busy, but happily I am back for this week's fun Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors, hosted by Toby. In this view, the era is the mid-1950s, the place being my grandparent's home on Oregon Avenue Steubenville Ohio, the person my Aunt Terry. The windows here seem peripheral to the giant holiday tree.

However, in an FB exchange last week with Terry, the picture window has a prominent history as she advised:

"Grandpa did like big trees - and he loved displaying those trees in the picture window. I remember when I was little we had small living room windows. When it was decided to replace them, Grandpa insisted that the windows be simple plate glass so that everyone would be able to see his Christmas trees in full view. When the city busses drove down Oregon Ave. they slowed down so that passengers could gawk at the tree -- and everyone rode the bus in those days"

Further, the tree was a part of the lore in Steubenville it seems:

"And, yes, one year the tree was featured on page 1 of the [Steubenville] Herald-Star. The paper had been asking for several years to feature the tree but they wanted Grandpa to decorate it a week before Christmas. He would have none of that when I was small. But one year he gave in. It might have been this tree that was featured"

So the giant tinsel tree makes the window whimsical indeed!

Ruby Tuesday Too - If it's the seventies, it must be plaid...

 

Ruby Tuesday Too is back, and I return to a kinda familiar sartorial theme: Plaid! This view is familiar (see sidebar) - however I have recently found and scanned more prints much of the familiar wardrobe items. The year is 1975, the place either in Steubenville (OH) or Weirton (WV), and with my grandfather who purchased the jacket also decked out in plaid. Are we not quite a pair? Plaid (along with long-ish hair and fat ties) was the style of the day!

Whimsical Windows - Pigeon roost

Toby is the host of the always fun Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors in which we look for and at interesting architectural gems. And I am back late owing to a sporadic internet signal which has turned progressively worse - Comcast will be here Tuesday hopefully fix it. Happily, right now the signal is okay. I'd hate to miss another week :)

My subject this week is from 1955 in , the the not-so-mythical steel-making city of Steubenville Ohio. This is a car-park apparatus referred to as Pigeon Hole Parking where a lift device moves horizontally and vertically to place your car in a discreet spot and could be easily retrieved when your shopping or errands were complete. 

I believe this to be downtown on Fifth Street, south of Market Street. In the background is a steel mill alongside the Ohio River. I believe it belonged to Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, and now closed. When I was in college in the city on the 1970s, a lifetime for some, this mill was a very busy place then as in 1955. I located this picture earlier this year and like its industrial style...

Shadow Shot Sunday - Mesa mystery

Three well-dressed gentlemen in front of a mesa in the Grand Canyon State, (1937?)

License plate mystery solved?

 Shadow Shot Sunday 2 and my namesake grandfather - it's not necessarily new for me as I have been chronicling the distant family past for awhile now (as Patti knows :). Yet my father's sole sibling, Aunt Terry has been following these photo memes and sent me another box of old photos a couple of weeks ago full of photos I haven't yet seen...
Always interesting is not knowing the background of the shot at all - so I merely guess. 

The three gentlemen, Grandpa in the middle, are obviously on the way to someplace special since they are wearing nicely tailored suits - in the desert? Maybe this is on U.S. 60 west from New Mexico?

More interesting are the two license plats on the car. his usual Ohio 'RV' plate and another - his radio license? The second photo, taken in 1977 or 1978, may explain that - the 1937 Ohio tag and...the 1937 radio license? I cannot say - however, along with the shadows, I do like a mystery...

Whimsical Windows - Oregon Avenue back then

Toby hosts the fun architectural meme Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors - we look for portals of interest. Those who follow my blogs know that I often refer to the past for inspiration as I have scanned maybe 1,000 or more old B&W prints since I inherited the JB Scotch box of photos when he passed away in 1981. And last week, my Aunt Terry shipped a box of old pictures to me for scanning and archiving, and these two jumped at me. Taken in 1947 (according to the license plate), it is in front of my grandparent's house at 1645 Oregon avenue in Steubenville, Ohio. My aunt is a well-dressed girl and her brother, my dad, dressed in a very stylish suit. The house is as I recall as a kid, and it remembered it up to 1981. It sits in a neighborhood that I assume, or at least hope, is still lined by these neat row houses are just as I remembered...

Shadow Shot Sunday - Parking apparatus

Strubennville and steel, 1955

Shadow Shot Sunday 2 is back, and a recently scanned, steel town Steubenville shot of slight shadow is chosen. The car at the upper left, a 1955 Packard Clipper suggests this is the year. This is probably downtown and it is a stacked mechanical parking lot/car park (referred to as pigeon hole parking) and taken from a roof of a nearby building. It appears that the elevator takes the vehicles to the level and slot the car is/was parked. In the distance looks to be one of the steel mills that once dotted the banks of the Ohio River. The grit of the industrial contrasts with the nice cars parked by the downtown shoppers. A shadow in time...

Whimsical Windows - Ralph at play

In 1955, Ralph looks to be ready for a round of golf

It is not this Ralph as the subject for Toby's Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors...

Actually it is my grandfather who this day is not at his normal business of leasing and fixing police and fire department radios in local towns in OH and WV. In his play clothes looking as if he was about to attack the front nine at the Steubenville Golf Club even though he didn't play. Windows involved are in his 1955 Plymouth work vehicle and the 1920s houses along Oregon Avenue. He looks like a million amid the neighborhood windows and doors...

SOOC - Tinsel (and then some)

SOOC - Straight out of the Camera - takes me back to the days of yore and that steelmaking city of Steubenville. Grandpa liked big Christmas trees full of tinsel - this example that sits in the middle of the living room certainly describes the big tinsel-y tree quite well...Given the picture of Aunt Terry on the modern for the day television, I'll guess this was taken around 1957 or so. I believe this view is straight out from his German Exa SLR camera - a proud tree decorator he! A merry and happy Christmas to all!

Whimsical Windows - Curvaceous Chapel

Chapel, Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio. July, 1999

Toby hosts the fun architectural meme Whimsical Windows/Delirious Doors. Today, I am using a scanned print from 1999, and it is the chapel at my alma mater, Franciscan University in Steubenville. The building has few doors and windows but has a dramatic curvy shape that stands out on the hill of this old coal and steel city on a hot day. On top, I see a rowboat of sorts aiming up - to the heavens perhaps? Opened in 1968, the elliptical house of worship catches our eyes looking upward and outward...