Week 23 - Girl's Joy

Last week we looked at humor used by those opposed to women's right to vote. This week we examined the more light-hearted images used to promote the cause.

 But for me, the name of the block, Girl's Joy, evoked this image of my grandmother and her younger sister May. Faye always kept this framed photograph on her bedroom wall.  My brother Jeff owns it now and took a photo of it for me to use here.  I chose my fabrics with this picture frame in mind.

Even when I was young I thought it was a beautiful photograph - although I couldn't really see my grandmother's face in that of the young girl on the left.  Jeff has the last formal photograph of Faye tucked into the frame. Faye made fun of her "horse face" in that photo.  Sadly, May never grew old. The only photos I have that include her are this one and those of the basketball team.  Carefully comparing these faces with the ones in the newspaper photo that I used in my week 12 post, I believe May is in the back row, second from the left, while Faye is the one second from the right (still in the back row), with her face a little blurred. Photography was a slow process and she is wearing a big smile - not often done in photos of the era since you can't really hold a smile long enough. 

Back row: second from left, my Great-Aunt May, and second from right, my grandmother Faye

My mother's collection had the newspaper clipping showing these young women that I used to determine identities, because I have a list of their names in conjunction with that one.  I was not sure which was May and was surprised when I eliminated the other possibilities and realized by 1909, she was a couple of inches taller than her older sister. Faye was born in 1892, May in 1894.

I have not yet been able to find May's actual birthday - but I confirmed the year of her birth from her tombstone. I found photos of it by searching for May W. Beaty who died in 1916 on a site containing cemetery images.