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Old Photographs Bring Memories
In 1995 my aunt Mary Lou Coney Love, the youngest of my Dad's siblings,
sent me a photograph while my Dad, Lowell Coney, was living with me in
Gainesville, Texas. He was in his late nineties. Mary Lou said that he
was in the photograph, as well as Edgar Lee, their oldest brother, but
she didn't know who the others were. She wanted Dad to see if he
remembered the people and the occasion. The photograph had been made in
the late 1910s or early 1920s as far as she could determine from the
approximate ages of Dad and Edgar.
Since Dad was almost blind at
this time, he couldn't recognize anyone even using our strongest
magnifying glass. I described the photograph to him. It was a group of
men and women who were dressed as if they were going to church, or maybe
even a funeral, since a couple of the women were obviously teary-eyed.
They were assembled on and around the front porch of a house.
Dad said he couldn't remember having many pictures made like that,
because at that time people just didn't make a lot of photographs. He
asked for more descriptions of the people. I told him there was a young
woman at the left front of the picture, probably in her teens, who
looked sad, and an older woman to her right who had swollen, teary eyes.
Dad was standing, just behind and a little to the left of those two
women, with Edgar next to him. Dad asked about the house, and exactly
how many people were in it. Then he wanted to know about the people
standing on the porch.
After thinking about it and asking a few more questions about how the
people were dressed, Dad said, "The only picture I remember like that
was taken at the Bryants'. Edgar had married their daughter, Hattie.
They had a baby girl they named Martha Lee. When Hattie died, Edgar and
the baby moved back in the house five miles from Ladonia with Mama and
Papa. A year or so had passed, and Edgar had decided to ask the Bryants'
permission to date another of their daughters. Nervous at the prospect
of facing them by himself, Edgar asked me to go with him that Sunday
afternoon right after church. I had a date with your mother, Orianna
McDonnold, and said I would go with him, if we could take her along.
Also, her parents wouldn't let her date unless her older sister Ollie
Ray went along as chaperone. He agreed. We picked them up in Edgar's
car. I let Orianna sit in the front seat by Edgar where she would be
more comfortable, and I sat in the back with Ray. When we drove into the
Bryants' yard, they got the idea that Edgar, who was in his early
thirties, was dating Orianna, an obvious teenager, and was bringing her
by to flaunt her. Accusations, angry words and tears made the situation
very tense before Edgar had the chance to make his intentions known.
After that, the Bryants tried to make amends. They apologized and had
the camera brought out to make the picture. They agreed to let Edgar
'call on' their daughter."
The minute that Dad said Mother
was in that picture, I picked it up to take a closer look. Just a few
years earlier I had been given a photograph of the McDonnold family made
on the porch of their two-story home near Pecan Gap when Mother was
thirteen. She hated the picture and thought the only copy had been
destroyed when their house burned, but one of her brothers kept his.
When I was visiting Aunt Floy McDonnold one day, I was lamenting the
fact that I didn't have any photos of my mother when she was young.
Pulling a large crumbly photograph from a box kept under her bed, Aunt
Floy gave it to me. I was so pleased. Now when I compared it to that
photograph sent by Mary Lou, it was obvious that the teenager was indeed
my mother. The teary-eyed woman by her side was Aunt Ray. Dad said,
"Well, you said the teenaged girl looked sad. That was your mother, but
she wasn't sad--she was mad as a wet hen! We were already engaged, and
she thought she looked very grown-up. The suspicions of the Bryants and
their rude actions had really upset her. Your Aunt Ray HAD been crying.
She had been invited out for a pleasant afternoon drive that had turned
into a confrontation. But it all turned out okay. Edgar did date the
Bryant girl and later married her."
How fortunate it was to
have both pictures and Dad brought together to learn "the rest of the
story."
Lowell McCormack
Gainesville, Texas
Published:
November 14,
2005
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