This photo in the header
would not appear to show a group of folks having a great time. And they may not have been. I just don’t know. In fact, there’s a lot I don’t know about this photo. So it’s just easier to start with where the photo came from and what I do know.
I first got a version of this photo from my Aunt Mary.
I had written her in July 1977 after my mother died, and she responded with a letter and this version of the photo:
On the back she had written:
July 27-77
Vincent Gerik Sr.
Vincent Gerik Jr.
Marie Gerik
I wasn’t born yet.
Grand Father Gerik
Grand Mother Gerik
Daddys Sister and Baby
her Husband tak Picture
Daddys 2 Brothers and three Sisters.
This could been taken about 82 or 83 years ago.
The photo was a copy she had made of an old, treasured photo that she had inherited. The copy showed quite a bit of damage to the original, but I was excited to have it.
And she had provided IDs! My grandfather (her father) Vince Gerik was in front on the far right, with his first wife Marie (Mary’s mom) with their son, Vince Jr. (who was forever known as “Jim”), her older brother (Mary would have been born a year or so after the photo was taken) . And the stern couple in front row in the middle would have been my great-grandparents! So far, so good.
But then we have “Daddys Sister and Baby” and “her Husband tak Picture”. Well, I get the woman and baby, and that the woman was Vince’s sister, but do I assume that her husband is not in the photo, since he took the picture? And who is the guy next to the woman with the baby? Was he one of the “Daddys 2 Brothers and three Sisters” she had added?
Left to my own devices, I would have assumed that the gent on the left end in the front row was a son of my great grandfather, since there seems to be a stern resemblance. And I would have assumed that the woman and baby were his wife and child. But Aunt Mary had a great memory, so it was unlikely she was wrong. And that was all she knew.
But all the folks in the back row (plus ol’ smiley on the far left in front) didn’t add up to the “Daddys 2 Brothers and three Sisters”. Who were all these other people?
I had no idea. And no easy way to find out more. And, well, I was moving to North Carolina for my first post-college job and just a bit self-involved with that, so this mystery would have to wait. And at the tender age of 23 it seemed I had a lot of time to figure it out some other day. Right…