Here are two or three dozen photos, mostly of relatives in Cambridge, IL, from 1957 (just as my parents returned from England) to 1959 or so. Circumstances date some of these; on others the date is stamped into the cardboard frame of the slide.
My parents returned from England in March 1957, when I was 1 1/2 old. Though they soon settled in California, presumably they returned first to Cambridge. Here’s a cake celebrating their return:
Next is a photo of the first family car I remember: a 1953 Chevrolet, likely a Bel Air:
Here’s something I had not realized until recently, as I resumed posting photos here (in 2020). This car must have been bought used. It’s a 1953 model. There was no photo of it among the 1954 Cambridge slides. My parents married in July 1953 and by then my father was already scheduled to start service in the Air Force, as a weatherman, that September, so it makes sense he wouldn’t have bought a car right away, or even a bit later. They moved to England, where my father served on a US base, in November 1954, and returned in March 1957. So I’m guessing he bought this car after their return, used.
The earliest photos in Apple Valley are also sometime in 1957, and since many of the photos here are dated ’58 and ’59, my family must have made the trip from California to Illinois and back at least twice, in April ’58 and January ’59.
Here are a couple family pics unambiguously dated April 1958. In the first pic is my great-grandmother Kelly, born 1879, who lived in Bishop Hill IL.
In this one the lady turned around is my father’s sister, my Aunt Betty.
Here are my parents.
Here’s a good one of my father and grandfather. (I wonder who took the picture.)
Here’s my father and his grandmother.
Four generations:
My grandmother and me:
My grandfather and me:
My great-grandmother and me:
Here I am all by myself, wearing that same suit:
And here I am with my cousin Paula, wearing a matching suit:
Here’s my father holding me in the same suit:
Here’s my grandfather and grandmother and their three kids, Bruce, Betty, and my father; and my mother. And a couple cars.
Here’s Betty, husband Stan, and their oldest, Ronnie, who was two or three years older than me.
Here are two pics from what must have been the January ’59 trip, given the snow. My grandfather’s house (which looked exactly the same when I visited last, in 1992), and a snowy street in the center of town, possibly from Aunt Betty’s house.
Finally several group family photos, perhaps on a different occasion, or at least on a different kind of film, given that these have faded.
Here’s Betty’s family (a boy and two girls so far), my family, grandparents, and great-grandmother.
Then the same group minus the middle generation.
Here’s a rough equivalent with my mother’s family: Father, mother, me, grandmother on mother’s side (“Grammie”), then my Uncle Bob, daughter Paula, wife Dorothy.
And then the Kelly cousins–my three cousins, and me.
