Rare Family Photos: Rare photo. Rare bicycle?

The last rare photo posted here, showing my mother working on a tobacco farm in 1939, is still a puzzle.

For example, I don’t have answers to the following questions: Who is Mr. Lee, one of five gentleman in the picture? Did my mother and I work for the same family during our youth, though 30 years apart? Why didn’t I inherit her good looks?

And a person I turned to for help left me with another puzzle. How did mother get to work?


["Mother relaxes on or near her childhood home, circa 1939"]

I don’t know. However, I do know her mother and siblings were penny-pinchers because they had to be. I know an uncle who lived nearby shared produce with them from his garden. And thanks to today’s rare photo, I know my mother could have biked to work, though, because she wasn’t typically known as an early riser, she might have grumbled at the 20 - 30 minute commute after a very early start to the day.

The photo is likely from the late 1930s and contains a few details about my hometown of Norwich. It’s Main St., running left and right one block north of mother, was dominated by the two-story red brick Post Office, and its clock tower is visible over mother’s head. (The telephone pole almost completely hides the round face of the clock, and from inside the square tower, for many years, the clock chimed to mark each quarter-hour. Also behind mother’s head is a round globe atop a street lamp pole; the pole bears a very distinctive design, and the next rare photo will show it more clearly.

Just out of the picture and to the left stands her uncle’s house, with a healthy garden to be sure. Beside it is the Knox Presbyterian Church (both it and uncle’s house remain today), and though the church was close by, my mother was known to attend the Quaker meeting house, two miles away on Quaker Rd., now the site of the grave yard in which my mother is buried.


["Metal emblem on my 1964 Raleigh"]

If you can, tell me what kind of bicycle mother owned. A Raleigh? I’m not at all sure. But I’d be interested in knowing.

Wouldn’t it be nice to toot around Wortley Village, London on such a bike in spring? I think so.

[Photos by GH]

***

Please click here to see more Rare Family Photos

.