And just like that, it’s time for Week 3 of the 52 Ancestors challenge. The prompt for this week is ‘Favourite Photo’. I am very fortunate to have quite a few photos of various ancestors, so it was hard to nail down just one to blog about for this week.
After much thought and examining of my photo files, I came across this photo and knew it was the one. It’s one I haven’t done a blog pot on before, but it’s also a really great photo that shows a moment in time. It also shows three generations of the one family.
Jean, Edith and Baby John
The photo depicts the proud, smiling faces of my grandmother Jean Levy (nee Thompson) with her mother Edith Thompson who is holding Jean’s first child John. Baby John was also the first grandchild for Edith, which I can imagine was a very happy moment for her. Given that John is still a very young baby in the photo I believe it was taken in 1945, perhaps to commemorate this happy moment for the family. It is obviously a studio photo, given the formal poses of the women, but my copy of the photo bears no clues to who the photographer was.
For me, it’s interesting to see my grandmother as a young 22 year old mother. Unfortunately, the happiness was not to last. After a few years of marriage, Jean’s husband fell into alcoholism. After the birth of her second son in 1951, Jean left her husband and filed for divorce. The divorce was successful, and I was able to obtain a copy of the records a several years ago. They tell a sad story of a mother being left with no means to buy food or clothing for her children.
Some years after her divorce, Jean remarried and had three more children (including my mother) with her second husband. Unfortunately, Jean ended up separating from her second husband after she discovered that he too was an alcoholic.