Mothers and daughter

My Aunt Julie who will be celebrating her 90th birthday this August. We're planning a big party in Girard Ohio or nearby. She was like a second mother to me. We lived on a family compound and shared backyards and had an orchard and lots of space to play outside. Cherry trees with beautiful white cherries to pick and eat off the trees, Mulberries, peaches, quince, apples, Italian prune plums on and on. My aunt is the and always has been the peacemaker. She still drives well!



My real mother who passed away in 1988 She was an enthusiastic smoker and died of lung cancer, although her father who only smoked a pipe also suffered the same fate. My mother worked her whole life, taking over the family store, shown below with her sister shown above, when my grandfather passed away cutting meat, and delivering to the neighboring farms. (this was pre-supermarkets.) My cousin Judy and I would sometimes go along sitting in the spare tire which served as the passenger seat 'smoking' candy cigarettes and playing. 
During the war, she worked in a muntions factory. First making bullets-she always said "keep your powder dry." But then taking a 'promotion' to secretary which paid less. Women's work.

My mother was intelligent although she never went to college, She was politically astute. She had a quick temper.



Me in front of the family store. We had huge snowstorms in Girard, Ohio which was in the lee of Lake Erie. Lake effect snow (or is it the windward side?) They closed the store when I was seven. After fits and starts I seem to have turned out ok.