Mary Louise Eklund

Category: Photo Post

  • Memoir Mondays – You Can Never Go Back To Jennifer Street

    207 Jennifer Greeneville house where I grew up (2)
    Jennifer Street my first remembered address.

    Jennifer Street wasn’t the first house I ever lived in, that one was was somewhere in Chattanooga Mom and Dad can tell you where. But Jennifer Street was the first house whose address I memorized. It’s the first house I have many memories of playing and living in. It is what I think of as my childhood home. We moved from there when I was in fourth grade. The next house I think of as my middle school years. This is a photo of it recently. What got me the most was how small it looked. I guess Thomas Wolf knew what he was talking about when he said you can’t go home. Things of your past don’t just sit there waiting for you to come back they go on changing too just like you.  Let me tell what has changed… (more…)

  • Throwback Thursday – Molly McCravey Bright

    Mary McCravey

    Keeping on the great grandmother portraits here is my father’s paternal grandmother Mary “Molly” Rebecca McCravey Bright. The unique thing I think is her father was a Confederate veteran. She married Thomas Bright in 1895 (about the time of this picture) whose father was a Union veteran. She lost her husband in a horrid farming accident when my grandfather was a young boy.

  • Wildcard Wednesday – Orlando in October

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    Mike and Mom in front of the big Orange gift shop. Mom got oranges to take to friends and we shopped.

    In October Mike and I took my parents to our condo in Orlando. We flew to Knoxville, rented a van, picked up my folks and hit the road. We made it just about half way the first night then on to Orlando. It was a calm week there seeing the sights. Dad mostly chilled in the apartment. Mom got out to see things. Below are photos of our trip where we ate our way through Orlando.

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  • Monday Memoir – Postcards From The Past – Guess Who’s having Fun In The Park

    Postcard 4 Front

    A bit risque for 1908! What’s the man doing with his hands behind that parasol that makes him smile so? Want to see more risque? Read the message on the back below…

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  • Throwback Thursday – My Snowman and Me

    Bright, Mary Louise in snow with brown knit hat (2)

    Let me say that growing up I didn’t have a lot of experiences with snow. That would come when I lived in upstate New York, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Just doesn’t happen south of the Mason Dixon line. But there were times we got what we thought was a lot (several inches). I tried to do what I’d seen in books with it but in the end it was never as fun as the movies. There they don’t seem to mind it’s wet and cold. Here I made one of the few snowmen in my life. Good thing I was only four as there wasn’t enough snow to make an adult size one. But I look like I’m having fun…. then (more…)

  • Wildcard Wednesday – Alice The Corpse Flower

    Oops! That's not Alice the corpse flower but Molly the dog.
    Oops! That’s not Alice the corpse flower but Molly the dog.

    Okay back in the Fall Alice the corpse flower at the Chicago Botanical Gardens bloomed. Mike and I went to see her when we had a weekend free. Sadly I have lost the photos of her. Also sadly when we got there she was going to seed and the stink was gone. I offer pictures I did find of Alice’s neighbors. Do enjoy after the cut –

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  • Wednesday Wildcard – My Collection of Ugly Carpet Pictures

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    It all started when I was bored at a conference and noticed the hotel meeting room had horrid carpet. You’d never pick to go anywhere. I made a photo silently with my phone and e-mailed it to a friend in Britain that has as warped a sense of humor as I do. Well that started what has become a years long tradition of making a photo album of the ugliest carpets I encounter. Most have been convention centers and hotels. This one was a hotel in Georgia’s hallway. Lovely, eh, rushing out to Lowes to get it installed aren’t you.  I won’t shock your senses with more but do know I think with the last decade of collecting I am becoming an ugly public carpet connoisseur.

  • Throwback Thursday – Short Skirts and TVs in Cabinets

    Bright, Mary Louise photo from brown photo album (8)

    That is me in about 1969. Yes the miniskirt was in full swing and I was hip to it. This was our home on Jennifer Street in Greeneville Tennessee. That TV there was black and white. It had two click dials one for VHF and one for UHF. We had cable that gave us five channels – ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and the riveting local data channel. This consisted of a wall with a clock, thermometer, day and date in a flip calendar, barometric pressure, and a board with weather conditions (cloud, sun, rain, snow flake stuck on a felt board) The exciting thing about it was there was a camera set up to pan over these in the line at a very slow. It was one for 24 hours seven days a week! You didn’t have to call time and temperature just turn to the channel and wait for the pan. The clock up there was made by my grandmother or my mom. I remember there was a bunch of bananas on it and one was black. I have the clock now, it doesn’t work but still reminds me of a time when cable was five channels and miniskirts were the best style going.

  • Thursday Throwback – Me and My Hair Hat

    Bright, Mary Louise furry hat in the snow (5)

    Okay two things to clear up here. First the date Apr 71 is when the film was processed not when we had snow in Greeneville, TN that year.
    Second that’s not my hair on top of my head – it’s my hair hat. That’s what I’ve always thought of it as being. If you look my hair is down on my shoulders there. I loved that hat, warm, cool style, and had a magnetic chin clasp. What more could a girl want?

  • Throwback Thursday – Ida Rogers

    Ida Alberta Rogers(1)

    Meet one of my maternal great-grandmothers. This is Ida Alberta Rogers Temple Keener (1881-1963). We think this is about the time she married my maternal great-grandfather in 1904. She has such a pretty Gibson Girl look that is truly a Throwback.

    Happy New Year! Enjoy celebrating safely tonight!