A while ago, I scanned my Aunt Virginia's photo albums. These raw images have been sitting on my hard drive, waiting to be cleaned and documented. For example, here's a photo of my grandparents' wedding day in 1927.
Noah Roth and Lola Sharp were married on 01 October 1927. Noah had just turned 25; Lola was 21. I particularly like these photos of Grandpa and Grandma with their new car. (All of the quoted text is provided by Aunt Virginia.)
"[The car] is a new 1928 chevy. For the first 200 miles Dad could only drive it 25mph. After driving it in the Portland area for awhile, Mom and Dad decided to take it to the coast."
"They drove from Portland to Astoria on route 30 and down 101 to Newport. At that time they would have forded most of the creeks because the bridges weren't built till in the 30's. The larger rivers were crossed by ferry. The bridges were a public works project President Roosevelt had for the men after the depression, that hit in 1929.
"The odometer showed 500 mile when they got to Neskowin, so they stopped and got the oil changed, from then on Dad could drive it 45mph. They were gone a week."
One of my many projects is to collect pieces of family history like this in one place. I've taped some stories from Virginia, and some from Beulah, Noah's sister (the last surviving member of that generation of the Roth family). Here's my transcription of the "Noah's new car" story as told by Virginia one Thanksgiving Tammy's house:
Noah worked for a time at a car dealership in Portland "at the end of Burnside".
Noah and Lola took a 28 Chevy hard-top to the coast. Portland - Astoria - Neskowin - Newport, driving 25mph for the first 400mph, then he could go 40mph.
In 1928, a lot of the coastal bridges were not in then and the roads were not paved. The roads were gravel and cars had to ford the rivers. The old concrete bridges were built after The Depression, they were built as public works projects. The roads were built to places where it was easier to ford. By then the road ran the entire length of the coast, from Washington to California. Before that drivers had to drive on the beach.
Noah's car was a 1928 Chevrolet hardtop sedan.
You S-types might be bothered by the small discrepancies between these two versions, but we N-types understand that what's important about this story is the Truth of it.
I really need to sit down with people and record even more stories.
Family history is wonderful stuff.
On this day at foldedspace.org
2003 — Roadside Weeds of Canby, Oregon In which I describe, in words and photographs, the common weeds around my home.
I found another relevant bit in my transcription file:
Eventually, I'd like to organize these stories into a unified coherent hole, add the photographs, and publish it all via iPhoto books or something similar...