Friday, June 12, 2009

Carnival of Genealogy 74th Edition--Annual Swimsuit Edition

Carnival of Genealogy 74th Edition—Annual Swimsuit Edition. Back by popular demand, the topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy will be: Swimsuit Edition! Why should Sports Illustrated have all the fun? This edition of the COG will be hosted at Creative Gene.      Years back my Dad’s cousin, Kae Billick, sent me this photo of their mutual aunt, Mary Louise VanGilder, known to family as “Bobs.” She was the daughter of George Ethelbert VanGilder and Jessie Pool, born March 9, 1894 in Morgantown, West Virginia. During a telephone interview, Kae told me that Bobs was a flapper during the Roaring Twenties. She was the older sister of my Grandmother Hughes and as you can tell from this photograph postcard, loved to have fun.   A couple of years ago, as I was surfing around the ancestry newspaper site, I happened upon the collection of old newspapers from Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Unbeknownst to me, there was a gold mine waiting for me to explore in that collection. 

     My Great Grandmother VanGilder, all of her sisters and even a couple of articles about her daughter, my Grandmother Hughes, were hiding there. I also found the newspaper article above which explains the photo postcard of my bathing beauty.

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.
© 2009, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser

6 comments:

  1. Fabulous Post and mahvalous photo!

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  2. I certainly would have loved to know Bobs! She looks like she was a hoot! What spirit and charisma she must have had! I love EVERYTHING about this postcard.. from her stockings to her smile! How funny! I actually fell on you blog randomly when looking for vintage 'bathing beauty' images.. but it looks like we have bunches of the same bloggy friends:) I love raeding Geneablogs!

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  3. Linda, you have such cool stuff on your family. Her picture makes me want a martini and I don't even drink martinis.
    I can't wait to see your garden pictures you hard working lady. My yard is luck if it gets watered some times.

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  4. OMG! What a great photo! May Bobs live on in history!

    Thanks for sharing your photo in the COG!

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  5. Luv the photo AND the newspaper clipping you found that goes with it! Such a thrill to make those connections . . .

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  6. Linda,
    Great picture, from the tigerskin rug to the smile
    on Bobs' face!

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