Old Family Photos!

I have spent much time in the last few weeks with family.  We lost our matriarch last week.  I will try and write about her again later.  Now is too soon.  But I love old photos and love old family photos even more.  There are so many that I was not able to go through all of them.  I tried but I was always distracted by kids, family stories, making plans and food.......

Several years ago I went though one of the boxes with Grams and she sent me home with several.  She wanted everyone in the family to get some.  There were still bunches left and another box was found with even more pictures.  Pictures from all the branches of the family have been mixed together, Clark, Boyd, Crow & Keeling.  So many of them were not marked on and there is nobody left to ask or who knows who some of them are.

I have brought bunches home to scan and return from the photos that other family members have picked out.  I have so many left to do.  It is going to take awhile to get the job done.  I am trying to remember to name the photo the way it is labeled on the back.  I think I missed a few that I have already returned.

Here are a few of my favorite family photos that I have scanned so far.......

My mother and her little brother.

 

Clark

Great Grandfather, Grandfather as boy and Great Grandmother.

 

Crow

Great Grandfather and Grandmother

Keelings

Not sure who is all in this one.  I forgot to name it from the writing on the back!

Boyds

This picture is marked "group photo taken in Joplin MO 1902".

I wish I know who all was in this one.  I know the heavy set lady is my Great Grandmother's sister.  She was reported to have thyroid problems. 

 

Here is the oldest known family member photo that I have.  It is my Great Great Grandfather Clark and his wife my Great Great Grandmother.  He was born in 1856 in White Co. TN.

They both died in 1935 and are buried just a few block from the family land in Rose Hill Memorial Park. 

 

 

I love this one of my Great Grandfather Clark.  He is listed as self employed as a jitney driver in Tulsa, OK on his WWI draft card.

The draft card also stated that he lived on Admiral Blvd.  If this photo was taken on Admiral Blvd then it was a dirt road back then.  I wish there was a date written on the back.  Later in life he was a bus driver in Tulsa.  Here is a photo of him holding my mother as an infant in his bus driver uniform.

 

My family has been on the land where Grams passed away last week for 100 years.  The Wyandotte Indian land in North East OK was traded for a very large section in Tulsa OK.  The lady that owned the Tulsa land was also a Wyandotte. My uncle told me this past week that my great grandfather sold off lots for houses to be built on and that he helped build some of them.  That was new info for me.  I didn't realize that there was so much land that they owned. 

 

There are also some fabulous old photos of Tulsa in the family photo collection.  Here are a few of my favorites from them.

 

Tulsa, OK 1923

 

Here are two shots of the Arkansas River in the West Tulsa area.  No date listed on these but they seem very old and are in rough condition. 

 

Here is one last photo I will share with you.  It was taken at Fort Sill Oklahoma.  It is a group of men that are headed off to WWII.  My grandfather is the first fully visible man on the left in the front row.  His hands are in his pockets and I love his white shoes.

My family says that he was stationed in France near the front lines and he repaired weapons.  My uncle says he never spoke of the war.  After he returned he took all of the guns the family owned and gave them to his cousin Jim Davis.  The Jim Davis of the gun museum in Claremore, OK.  I need to research and find out how Jim Davis is related...... more to do!