Wedding Wednesday

Ethel and Paul's Wedding Day

22 February 1947

This photograph was taken on the day my Aunt Ethel and Uncle Paul were married. Left to right are my grandparents: Irene (Banet) Dreher, Henry Dreher, their daughter - Ethel (Dreher) McCutchen and Paul McCutchen. They have all passed on now. Dear, sweet souls, and I miss them every one.

Grandma was a little firecracker. She could be sweet when she wanted to be, but she could let you have it when she was mad! LOL

Grandpa was a master carpenter. He built a little of everything. But his cabinetry was simply beyond belief! This man was also a scholar. He studied his Bible daily. And read the dictionary like many of us would read a novel. He once told me that when you give up learning, that was when you lay down and die. He learned something new everyday. And he was very into politics! During the Watergate incident, he would send my Mom newspaper clippings and ask her opinion of this or that. Yeah, if you wanted to get him started on a lengthy tirade, simply ask him what he thought of Richard Milhouse Nixon!

Aunt Ethel was a nurse for many years. Believe it or not, she became an LPN through a correspondence course!  In her later years, she worked as a volunteer in a nursing home. Uncle Paul, what can I say about him? He loved the outdoors. He was often seen in buckskins and going to Mountain Man rally's.

The photograph above was taken just a little over 70 years ago. Weren't they all simply gorgeous? That was when Men were Men, and Ladies were Ladies. (I keep saying I was born in the wrong time era! LOL) I love how the women dressed in the 30's and 40's and 50's.

Carnival of Genealogy 78th Edition - Pony Picture

The challenge for the current COG was to post a photograph of ourselves, or a family member, posing for a pony picture. Well, I'm afraid that never happened for me. No pony pictures! Or for my sister!

Where, oh where to locate a photo of a family member on a pony?

Then I recalled the visit from my Aunt Ethel, in 1988, just before my grandmother passed away. My Mom [Ethel's sister] and Dad lived next door to me at the time. Dad had a lovely riding horse named Sandy. Aunt Ethel, who was 64 then, said that when she was a child she had always wanted her picture taken with a pony. And when there was a traveling photographer who made the rounds near their home she had begged for her picture to be taken. The Depression was in full-swing then, and there wasn't an extra penny to be had, much less the $1 to cover the cost of a photograph.

So, to fulfill her dream, Dad sat his cowboy hat on her head, and she climbed atop 'Sandy', Dad's horse. And I took the snapshot to commemorate the event.

And so, 60 years late, but taken nevertheless, Little Ethel Dreher got her wish.

Here's the photo I took of her.

Today Ethel is 85 years young, and still going strong!