The Depression Years
Occasionally, I will throw in some photos of my grandmother, Laura Whitaker Sawyer. She ran a tourist home called The Virginian in Richmond, Virginia, and she was a great person. You can read more about her and my mother's life growing up in the tourist home in Lost But Not Forgotten: My Mother's Story. Mom made a HUGE scrapbook for me several years before she died. I meant to include photos in my digital copy of the book, but I couldn't figure out how to include them without the photos moving all around. I would have put photos in my paperback book, but it would have increased the cost to you, the reader, so I didn't. However, some of these old photos are amazing.
My husband and I have been back to Richmond to visit the tourist home, but it's now student housing on Chamberlayne Avenue - a duplex. I miss the kitchen closet stairs that led to the second floor landing and the porch off of the best bedroom in the house. I miss the back patio where we'd ride metal push-pedal cars when I was a kid, and the back porch where my grandmother would tell me stories while we swung in the swing.
My book goes on to tell how my mother met and married my dad and then goes into our struggles with his bipolar disorder, drinking, and physical abuse. Finally, it tells how mom left him and made a newer, happier life down in Florida when she retired from her job. I even include two stories about her life that Mom wrote for submission to a magazine or newspaper. They're quite good, I think.
So if I can manage it, I'll try to post a picture of my grandmother on one of her many jaunts with her friends. If you can identify the locale, let me know.
