photos of Patsy, Bill and Bob in 1954

One day a friend took these pictures in our back yard in Comanche.  I believe the Episcopal priest Father John Salberg took these.  They were slides which have now been digitized. I don't know that anyone else had a camera that made slides in those days.

Bob would have been 4 and Bill would have been 12 about this time.  I think it was Easter Sunday.

Our house on the De Leon highway ca. 1945

I think we owned this house.  It had a dirt yard, as you can see.  It was about 5 or 6 miles north of Comanche on Highway 16 towards DeLeon.  You can't see here but it had at least a quarter acre of blackberry bushes.  And an amazing pear tree way down in back by the creek.

Mother tried to raise hogs while we were here.  They got out and ruined her garden.  She was so mad she sold the sow and 13 little ones to the first person that came along.

I can't remember if we had indoor plumbing or not.  That might be the outhouse in the back of the third photo.  I do remember using an outhouse when I was a little kid somewhere.  Bill was very young, about 3.  One day mother set the back yard on fire while she was trying to burn trash.  The neighbors came over and tried to help put the grass fire out; it was a hot dry summer.  But Bill was in the house sleeping and missed all the excitement.

Bill Atwood, my brother the musician

Until 1976 my brother, Bill Atwood was living in San Francisco working as a professional trumpet player.  He played and recorded with many famous artists, such as Chuck Berry, Boz Skaggs, Van Morrison, and even with Elvis on tour one season.

Bill and his wife Teretha had two dauughters, Audrey and Leigh Ann.  Bill is holding them  in front of their Daly City house beside their Buick Skylark.









We visited Bill and Teretha in Daly City in 1973. This is Bill and my daughter Margaret sitting at Bill's dinner table.













In front of my shop on Dorothy Lane in the 1980's….Bill Atwood and Bill Reese.

Atwood gathering about 1977

standing, l to r, Mike Hansen, Alme Denny, Hipp Arthur, Mamie Hansen, Bill Reese, Ed Atwood, Harold Denny, Patsy Reese. In front, Laura Atwood kneeling, Bill Atwood with Ann Atwood on his lap, Ernestine Arthur, TR Atwood, Margaret Reese.  I don't know where Anne was.  Maybe she took the picture.

Early pictures of Anne Flavia, our first baby

Here are some pictures from Anne Flavia's first year.  The one at top was made on Mother and Daddy's front porch at their house in Hillsboro. It includes my brothers Bill and Bob.

Below left is from the reunion of Mother's family in Austin in May of 1959.

Below is me, Mother, holding Anne, Hayne in back and Daddy on the right.

early days with our little family in Comanche

I found a group of old snapshots made when Bill and I were quite young.  Thought I would make a short slideshow with one of the songs Mother used to sing as a lullaby to Bill.

The first picture is from Easter 1943.  You can't see it in the photo but I was sitting in the back yard of our house on the De Leon highway.  In front of me was a huge blue potted hydrangea that Daddy gave Mother that day.

 The person in some of the car photos is my cousin, Cleve B. Denny.  He was aunt Alma and Uncle Harold's only son.  He had just come back from being in the Navy in WWII.

Patsy Atwood at 12 with short hair

Uncle Ed took this picture of me the summer I was 12.  I never liked my hair short that I can remember.  The other photo made that day is from an earlier blog.

My brothers and cousins on Mother's side

My mother and her sister Elna both had two boys.  Elna named her oldest boy Bob and her younger son Bill.  My mother named her oldest boy Bill and her youngest boy Bob.

Left to right:  Bob Hanks, Bill Atwood, Bill Hanks, Bob Atwood.

This photo was made about 1959 in Austin at Elna's home at a family reunion.

snow in the pasture

This was about 1943 I think.  We had a terrific snow and the grownups made this huge snowman.  Daddy built a sled out of lumber, tied it to the back of our car and towed us around (slowly, of course) in Uncle Ed's pasture.  I can still remember that day.  The snow made everything so quiet, and we screamed with laughter, and everybody was really happy that day.

There is another great photo and paragraph about this at

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3801104567582240677#editor/target=post;postID=7509114308771295114

High top shoes and missing teeth

These studio pictures of me and Bill were made by a photographer in Dublin, Texas when I was 6 and Bill was 2.

Please notice that I finally got to wear low-top shoes.  Bill, however, is still in high-tops.  We had to wear them till our sixth year, both of us. Looks like I might have lost a tooth or two.

Bill and me, 1949

Uncle Ed made this picture of Bill and me in his back yard at the Atwood Hatchery when we were almost 8 and 12 years old.  We sure had lots of good times there.  Often my dad and Uncle Ed and their  brothers-in-law went fishing together.  They brought back fish, usually bass and stripers, for the whole clan. We would eat supper out in the yard and then make home made ice cream. What good times we had! 

Bill Atwood and his trumpet

This is my little brother.  He started playing the trumpet even earlier than I started playing the flute. (He was five, I was eleven.)  The first time he was supposed to play in public was in a skit at school where he was Little Boy Blue.

Well the night before Daddy taught him how to take his horn apart and clean it.  And somehow when he put it back together something was in the wrong place.  So when his cue came up, and he started to blow his horn, nothing came out.

more from 1945-53

these are all photos I took with my Brownie Hawk-

eye camera.  It was a Christmas gift from my parents

in 1945.

Mother with little Bob and Bill taken by me

Bill with Daddy Christmas 1945

Aunt Ruth's little girl Susan

Aunt Ruth Lundy, Daddy's closest sister

                                       

Bill Atwood my brother

My brother Bill (William Thurston) Atwood was born when I was four years and four days old. The first thing I remember about him was visiting in the hospital where he was born in Gorman, Texas and seeing his little feet with black ink on them where his footprints had been put on his birth certificate.

here's Bill at 2

Here"s a snapshot of my brother Bill Atwood taken by my Uncle Ed.  It was made in the little house that Uncle Ed and Aunt Laura had next door to their hatchery in Comanche.  I think Bill was 4 years old.

Snow in Comanche January 1943

On January 2, 1947 Aunt Laura wrote in her letter to Aunt Mamie:

"we are having the most beautiful snow.  It started New Years Eve and the forecast for tonight is more snow.  We (Ed and Laura) are carrying water to the chickens three times a day for three days so far."

We lived nearby Ed and Laura's place that year. Snow was and is so rare in Texas.  It was huge fun.  Here are a couple of pictures from that day. In January 1947 Bill was 4 and a half and I was 8 and a half.  Our birthdays are 4 days apart.