Just What I Always Wanted: 1901

My Grandmother - born in an earth-floored cottage in Ireland in 1901 - would have regarded carpet on the floor as luxury.

which can only come when one passes yet another Christmas without receiving the much-anticipated Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle BB gun with a compass in the stock and a thing which tells time.

There does seem to be a kind of infinite sadness in her expression, very surprising in a child her age. I hope she went on to have a happy life.

There's no way that tea set will fit into that toy oven. What was Santa thinking?

There is something heartbreaking about this picture.

Orville and Wilbur weren't particularly well known when this picture was taken - just a couple of tinkerers who owned a bicycle shop. Her grandfather Bishop Wright was the family star. He had broken with the liberal leadership of his church to found the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Old Constitution, and had been one of the founders of Huntington University in Indiana.

Bertha's father, Lorin, was the second of the Bishop's seven children and was about five years older than Wilbur and nine years older than Orville. He died in 1939.

I'm NOT smiling!! I waited a whole month to visit my awesome uncles and open these gifts. Now you want me to sit still and smile?

How long would she have had to sit still for this photo to be so clear?
Amazing detail, you can see the individual needlepoint stitching in the carpet.

And who says childhood obesity is a new thing???