joan's piano

We recently inherited Joan's piano. If there is such a thing as a family heirloom, this piano would be near the top of our list. Joan received the piano from her dad for her 12th birthday on September 10, 1945. It was her most prized possession. When the family relocated from Ohio to Southern California in 1960, the piano moved into my great-grandmother's living room because it wouldn't fit in Joan's apartment. Here's a photo of my mom playing the piano before her junior prom in 1973:

After my great-grandmother passed away the following year and Joan moved into her new house in the nearby suburb of Cerritos, the piano moved into a corner of her living room. You can see it in the background along with the chandelier that now hangs in our foyer:

For the thirty years she lived in the house, the piano occupied that space. When my sister and I were kids, we loved playing the piano. It was one of our favorite pastimes as children. After we sold Joan's house in October 2011, the piano moved across the country to my mom's house in Oxford, where it stayed until this spring when my mom decided to downsize. It now lives in our living room: 

We still have some work to do in this room, but we are excited to have Joan's piano in our home. Jonathan is already practicing his piano-playing skills. Porter sings along!

vintage summer garden

I love the muted colors of these early 1970s photographs of my great-grandmother's garden. Photoshop has some awesome filters, but nothing is quite like the real thing. These photos feel like a summer garden should feel....warm and soft with flowers and trees everywhere. Add in palm trees and the most breath-taking views imaginable, and you have summertime perfection.

family photos: great-grandmothers

It's a day for beautiful, turn-of-the-century photographs of our families. The top photo is Jonathan's great-grandmother Eliza (back left) and her sisters. The middle photo is my great-grandmother Tina and her family. She is front and center. The bottom photo is my other great-grandmother Elsie and her sister Myrtle. Eliza's family lived in Prentiss County, Mississippi, Tina's family lived in Naples, Italy and Elsie's family lived in Lancaster, Ohio. The time period would be about the same for all of them. What would they have thought if they had known they would be linked together someday? 

Family Stories: At Christmas

Today I wanted to share some photos of my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents at Christmas. My dad grew up in Naples, Italy, where he enjoyed American and Italian Christmas traditions. Here he is with his mother, Lucy, his sister Tina and their grandmother Tina. This would have been around 1960.

Here's my dad and Tina checking out the elaborate nativity scene, which is called a presepio in Italy. I love the look on his face. He could totally be one of the characters from the movie A Christmas Story.

Here they are a few years later in front of the Christmas tree. I love Tina's hat. She still makes this face, by the way!

If you look closely, you'll notice that they always put the Christmas tree in the exact same spot! Here's a later photo in color of my dad and grandmother standing beside the tree. My 90-year-old grandmother still lives in that same apartment, and I bet she still has many of these ornaments on her tree. :)

On the other side of the world in Palos Verdes, California, the family tree looked like this:

All of those ornaments hang on my mom's tree today. Here she is with her grandmother on Christmas morning. The stereo, end table and coffee table are all still in our family.

And here she is opening presents with Joan and her future stepdad Sid. They were very '60s!

It's easy to get away from taking photos when our holidays are so hectic, but it's so fun to revisit these memories. We hope they inspire you to pull out your own family pictures and add to the new photographic treasures this holiday season.