Denise's family photos

My mother-in-law Denise is a very busy lady who spends most of her time taking care of her family and friends. Most women have a strained relationship with their mother-in-laws, but she is one of most selfless people I know. She spends most of her time taking care of her family, friends and neighborhood kids.

When she does have a free moment, she delights in the simple things -- a Sunday afternoon in her garden, a Saturday morning drive to the flea market to look for vintage treasures and a holiday spent with her children, granddaughters and soon-to-arrive grandson (!). She is an old soul, and many of her lifelong interests were formed during days and weekends spent with her beloved grandparents. Many of her family photos burned in a house fire years ago, so the photos she still has are very precious to her. Lately I have been working to digitize and create a photo book of her family photos. 

Here are a few of my favorites: 

Clovis and Arletta Geno, Denise's parents. 

Her adorable grandparents, James and Pearl Barnes. 

Denise (bottom right) and most of her siblings. 

Denise's grandmother, Mommie Barnes (third for left), and her sisters (Sarah Gann, Myrtle Thorton, Pearl Barnes and Mary Gann).

Denise's sweet sister Glenda who was killed in a car accident a few weeks before Jonathan was born. 

Baby Jonathan.

Jonathan again. 

Denise (top right) and her sisters. 

Denise (right) with her cousin Susan and sister Sandi. 

Stylish Linda Yates in the '50s and '60s

The scanning and editing of the family photos continues!

This week we're sharing photos from the 1950s and 1960s of Jonathan's Aunt Linda Yates. A former beauty pageant queen, Linda was quite good at striking a pose.As you'll notice, she was also very fashionable regardless of whether she was standing beside the car in the hot sun or kneeling beside her nephew Greg. 

Enjoy!

denise and clovis

My mother-in-law Denise lost her father, Clovis Geno, to a massive heart attack on September 11, 1977 when he was only 62 years old. She loved her daddy very much and still talks about him all the time, but sadly, she doesn't have many photos of the two of them together. I'm in the process of scanning and editing the few she does have, so she can enjoy them for years to come. 

Denise and Clovis Geno.

Little Denise with her father Clovis.

Denise and her parents, Clovis and Arletta Geno.

Denise with  a Christmas bow in her hair.

lady with a heart for Capri

Capri, Italy.

LADY WITH A HEART FOR CAPRI  by Anna Maria Boniello

My Nonna in her room in Capri.

Translated from Italian to English

The first time that the little Lucia, daughter of Raoul de Forcade Marquis and Marchioness de Biaix Tina, laid her eyes on Capri, she was just five years old. It was a different Capri in 1928, an era in the middle between the two World Wars, and the aristocratic family descended on the island as a place of choice to spend the free time, the holiday months, even in those that today would be called the "low season." The memories of Marquise Lucia (pictured), now ninety years old, they are perfect and shiny and well-preserved in her memory, where she recorded anecdotes of famous people and simple stories of the local people. "Our first house," begins to tell the Marquise de Forcade, "was Villa Weber. Few today know that it is not the beautiful building that houses a hotel, but a typical house from the local architectural lines at the beginning of the Two Gulfs, which has hosted over the years, having been the home of the philosopher-poet, the premises of the court and then the court. Then we moved to another house with the largest and most sumptuous Villa wall, in a bottom of Vuotto to Tiberius, owned by an English nobleman. The most vivid memory I have, however, was our landing in Capri. No pier, but fishermen welcomed passengers with their strong arms and their boats and took them to the ground. This was my first arrival to the island."

See the original story (written in Italian) here. You can also read a story by my grandmother about Curzio Malaparte that is written in English here.