This is my dad’s family. I’m not sure what the occasion is, but they are all dressed up for something, aren’t they? There’s no date on the photo (Update: My sister dates the photo at about 1948), but I’d guess that the youngest children are teenagers and one son, as you can see, already has a child. My grandpa is in the center; my grandma is the second from the left; the others are their four sons, two daughters, and one granddaughter. My dad is the second from the right if you don’t count the baby.
This is what we would call a blended family. My grandma and grandpa each had two children when they married, and together they had three more, including a little boy who died when he was a few months old. There two last names—my dad and his brother were Russells and the rest were Vogts—but it was one strong family.
There are five of the six Vogt/Russell sons and daughters still living, and here you see them in a photo from their family reunion last summer. My dad is the one in the center. It’s my dad’s full brother, the son on the far left of the old photo, who is missing. The remaining brothers and sisters range in age now from their seventies to nineties.
The last time I saw this group was when my mother passed away 6 years ago. Every one of them came for the memorial service. The one brother and two sisters who still live in Kansas, along with the brother’s wife, drove all the way up to Minnesota together.
I’m hoping I inherited their spunk.