Alan Mays' photos with the keyword: grandmothers

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of grandma and grandpa (grandparent(s) featured in a family photo) . A grandmother and grandfather hold a two-tiered cake as they pose for a photo with their grandson. All three of them are wearing flowers in their coat and jacket lapels. The presence of the cake and flowers makes me wonder if the grandparents are celebrating a special wedding anniversary. Given how the cake is tilted, I just hope that it didn't slide off onto the grandson's head!

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo of squinting into the sun (subjects obviously struggling to keep eyes open while facing into the sun for the photographer; borrowed from a Flickr group) . For additional examples, see my album of Vintage Squinters . Handwritten on the front of this real photo postcard: "Aug. 28, '07. Dear Grandma: I told you I was coming Thursday, a [week?]. How do you like Helen and I? I am not very well, Mary." Addressed to: Mrs. Mary E. Mock, Stoyestown, Pa., Route 2. Postmarked: Friedens, Pa., Aug. 28, 1907.

An auctioneer's business card with a humorous explanation of "How a Man Can Be His Own Grandfather" on the other side. This same genealogical calculation was the basis for " I'm My Own Grandpa ," a 1947 novelty song by Lonzo and Oscar, but the idea of becoming one's own grandfather has been circulating in newspapers and elsewhere for more than 190 years . C. Fry, Auctineer. Burbanks, P.O. Box 100, Wayne Co., Ohio. How a Man Can Be His Own Grandfather I married a widow who had a daughter. My father visited our house frequently, fell in love, and married my stepdaughter. Thus my father became my son-in-law and my stepdaughter my mother, because she was my father's wife. My stepdaughter had also a son; he was of course my brother and at the same time my grandchild, for he was the son of my daughter. My wife was my grandmother, because she was my mother's mother. I was my wife's husband and grandchild at the same time; and as the husband of a person's grandmother is his grandfather, I was my own grandfather.

A Kodachrome slide dated January 1961.

Handwritten on the back of this real photo postcard: "1920 at Palisades Park. First I ever saw Grandma and Grandpa."

Posted as a "reading" photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park group, this real photo postcard shows two Iowa sisters, Lilly and Mazie Hitzemann, who are reading--or maybe just looking at--a magazine. The girls are dressed nicely for the photo session, and Lilly, left, is wearing a necklace while Mazie, right, sports a bow in her hair. Both girls are staring intently at the magazine they're holding. From what I could make out after enlarging the image, the front cover of the magazine displays a young child's head, and a full-page advertisement for "1847 Rogers Bros." silverware appears on the back cover (1847 is part of the brand name and doesn't indicate when the magazine or ad was published). Visible under enlargement on the front cover of the magazine is a date that includes the year "1912," and the title of the magazine looks like it ends in "-n-ator" (I couldn't determine the letter between n and a). One possibility is that this was an issue of The Delineator , a popular women's magazine published by the Butterick Publishing Company of sewing patterns fame. The covers of Delineator issues from this time, however, typically featured illustrations of fashionably dressed women rather than children's heads. Additional information from the back of the postcard: Handwritten message: "From Mazie to Grandma." Postmarked: "Columbia, [Iowa?], Jan. 13, 1913." Addressed to: "Mrs. Henry Hitzemann, Box 202, Akron, Iowa." Later handwritten annotation on back: "Right - Mazie Hitzemann. Left - sister Lilly. Daughters of Chas. and Mabel Hitzemann."

One of the dealers at a local antique mall sells a variety of old photos, and I usually find a few interesting images each time I visit. I noticed that the dealer occasionally adds pithy comments--ranging from clever and witty to sarcastic and dark--to the back of some of the photos, and I began watching for these "precaptioned" pics when I looked through the piles of hundreds of unsorted snapshots at his stand. I can't resist the captions that turn out to be interesting or amusing (and sometimes quirky or strange), and I often end up buying the photos, even if they're bent, torn, or taped. I don't know anything about the dealer who conjures up these captions, but perhaps he, too, appreciates a good Far Side or Charles Addams cartoon.