Five Generations

Mom was always proud of these two pictures. The top vintage photograph was taken in White Cloud, Kansas, in 1921, the year she was born. The seated woman holding my mother as an infant is her Great Grandmother Mary E. Shuck Hook (1853-1933), born eight years before the Civil War began (her husband, Henry Hook, 1847-1935, was born even earlier). The woman standing behind her to the left in the photograph is mom's Grandmother Anna Jane Hook Nuzum (1884-1966). The woman to the right is her mother, Gladys Ruth Nuzum Breeze (1903-1989). Mom was born on July 4th, 1921, and died in June 2002.

The bottom photograph, also in White Cloud, must have been taken in 1951. From left to right are Anna Jane Hook Nuzum, our Great Grandmother from the photo above; mom; Georgann; and our Grandmother Gladys Ruth Nuzum Breeze. I can only speculate that we stopped in White Cloud on the journey to dad's new assignment in Victorville. So, the five generations go back before the Civil War. (Henry Hook's father, John Hook, was born in 1822; his mother, Anna, was born in 1828.)

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