Love the photo!  Isn't it fun to look at those old pictures--especially when they are labeled?  Fine looking women.  I've been going through old photos trying to label what I can, but sadly there is no older family  members left to ask.  

this is one of my grandmother ( on the left) and her siblings some time around 1900.  It is when they were still living in  Czechoslovakia so this must have been their native dress.

\

How very special!  That photo was taken back in the day when the subjects literally had to "freeze" (hold still and not blink) for a number of seconds for the long exposure needed to get a good image so that is why everyone looks so serious. I love studying the clothing in the old pictures because you know they were wearing their very best for the occasion.

Your grandmother looks a bit sad. Do you suppose this photo was taken just before she left the old country to come to America? Do you know if the entire group came together?

I had to chuckle when I read your post.  She came over alone at 16, but had brothers that were already here to go to.  I chuckled because I don't think her expression changed in her whole 86 years.  She died when I was 17 but my whole childhood I thought of her as a sourpuss.  Very seldom did we see her smile or laugh.  Seemed like her life was one big pity party and she only associated with family, which was big.  So, I don't have warm childhood memories of a grandma that made cookies.  Hugs were mandatory, not loving or comforting.  

That's a great picture too.  Your grandmother sounds like mine.  My sister and I have often commented that both us and our children were short changed in the Grandma department (on all sides of our families), so we intend to be super grandmas.  She's doing a very good job so far, and I'm a very sweet grandma to my daughters cat :-)

mentioning the clothing, the clothing in your picture is very special too, lots of fancy buttons.  getting a photo was a big deal.  I remember it being an event when I was a kid, I can only imagine what it would have meant in those days.  We have a picture of my husbands grandmother and her sisters, "all decked out" as my MIL said.  Which was interesting because they were very poor, but you would never have known looking at that picture, 4 very good looking young women.

Thank you for the bit of information about having to "freeze" to have a photo taken.  Will change how I look at older pictures.

Jo

there is a lovely book called Once Upon A River by Dianne Setterfield.  One of the main characters is a photographer is rural England when photography was just getting started.  I love the book for many reasons but it is also interesting to read about the process at the time.  the photographer had to prepare the chemicals, apply it to the glass, as well as developing them.

latterberry said:

She died when I was 17 but my whole childhood I thought of her as a sourpuss.  

In my family, it was my grandfather who was stoic/mean/ornery and a few more adjectives I could mention.  Still, I can almost understand because he came to this country alone as a boy, basically as a stowaway, having "attached" himself to a very large family who was making the crossing from Finland.  He arrived in the Port of Galveston (Texas) on his own, without money, friends or knowledge of English.  He scratched his way through the Texas/Oklahoma oil fields in the early 1900's, and ended up being a fairly wealthy man....but still mostly stoic/mean/ornery and a few more adjectives I could mention!

I am at retreat a few days.  Here is the scrap top I got put together. I have had the blocks made a couple years ago.  I’m excited to empty this tub!

That's a very nice use of scraps, Ellen.  I really like the clever way you used every morsel of fabric and made a lovely large quilt top. It's so easy to piece and I can see a beginning quilter having a good time working with your idea.