"HEATHER DIANE WILKINSON is the ten-month-old daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. John Wilkinson of 1 Kernwood avenue, Beverly. Her
father is employed by the Travelers Insurance Company in Boston.
Her grandparents are Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Allen of Hamilton and...."
I found this news clipping in some papers. It's a photo of me as a baby.
I have no idea what newspaper it is from, but it must be from Beverly, Massachusetts since that is where I grew up.
I have no idea of the date, except that it must be in the late summer of 1962 since it states I was ten months old in the caption.
I have no idea why this photo was in the newspaper. It's not attached to any particular story, or news, or announcement. The caption seems to be cut off since it mentions my maternal ALLEN grandparents in Hamilton. and then the word "and" and the caption ends before mentioning my paternal WILKINSON grandparents. Did people used to post family photos in the newspaper just for fun, like we do at Facebook nowadays?
Questions... questions....
I like this little news clipping because it reminds me of the apartment where I lived before we moved to my great grandparents and grandparents house on Dearborn Avenue in Beverly. That was a house my great grandfather John Peter Bowden Roberts bought soon after arriving in Massachusetts after immigrating from Leeds, Yorkshire, England. I lived there until I was about 7 years old. I often forget that I lived on Kernwood Avenue in an apartment.
I also like this news clipping because I remember that when I was growing up my mother had this same photograph, colorized, hanging in her bedroom. The little baby dress was pink. Over time it was replaced with other photographs of me and my sister as we grew older.
This news clipping also reminds me that my Dad worked for the Travelers Insurance Company in Boston when I was very small. He used to ride the train from Beverly to Boston. The Travelers building was one of the tallest in Boston when I was growing up, and now it doesn't even exist. It used to be in the financial district of Boston, and visible when we were driving on the elevated South-East Expressway. That road doesn't exist anymore, either, having been replaced by the tunnel known as "The Big Dig".
The Travelers Insurance symbol was a red umbrella. There was a silhouette of a red umbrella at the top of the Travelers building in Boston. Yes, Dad used to have several of those red umbrellas. We had them around the house for years after he changed jobs to the North Western Mutual Insurance company and we moved to the town of Holden in central Massachusetts. One year I had a red raincoat, and my mom let me use one of those matching Traveler's red umbrellas to walk to elementary school.
Memories... memories...
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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo
I remember the paper in Winthrop used to publish many vignettes of birthday parties, dances - not associated with school, lots of pictures about the Rainbow Girls, Eastern Star, Rebekahs and their associated fraternal organizations. There was a lot of reporting on social functions. My mother was once - Woman of the Week. They featured someone different every week. Perhaps this paper was doing something similar.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this "memory lane" post. I'm trying to remember how newspapers behaved in the 1960s . . . different from today, I'm sure. I remember the Travelers red umbrella, and too bad it had to yield to the "Big Dig."
ReplyDeleteOne thing for sure -- that is a happy and contented baby in the newspaper picture. Love it.
How neat, Heather-- and what an adorable baby you were!
ReplyDelete