Wedding Bells 1955 : Dixon and Traina

My mother, Mary E. Dixon, married her best friend's brother, Frank J. Traina, on May 15, 1955. From photographs I have seen, Mary was well acquainted with the Traina family for years before she and Frank tied the knot.

The wedding took place in Union, New Jersey, and was a civil ceremony performed by a Magistrate of the Court. Mary's Matron of Honor was her future sister-in-law, Frances (Traina) Carlino. The Best Man was Frank's friend, Leo Piazzo.

Here are a few photos from their wedding day.

Mary (Dixon) Traina gets help with her hair
from her sister-in-law and
Matron of Honor, Frances (Traina) Carlino.

Mary (Dixon) and Frank Traina
15 May 1955

Matron of Honor, Frances (Traina) Carlino
and Best Man, Leo Piazzo

The toast.
Frank and Mary (Dixon) Traina toast,
as Fran (Traina) Carlino looks on.

The happy couple and their parents.
Left to right: Joseph Traina and Lillian (Maita) Traina;
Frank and Mary (Dixon) Traina; Sophie (Karvoius) and Wallace B. Dixon.

Mary (Dixon) and Frank Traina cut the wedding cake.

Frank Traina dancing with his sister, Mary Ann,
and Mary (Dixon) Traina dancing with her brother, Wallace A. Dixon.

The happy couple in a snazy car.
Mary (Dixon) and Frank Traina.

Easter 1964 : Bonnets!

Ah, Easter! Chocolate bunnies, jellybeans, dyed eggs, and the dreaded Easter outfit. Please, take a moment to absorb the rediculous things that we are wearing on our heads. [You can click on the images if you want to make them larger.]

Mom, Grandma, and me. Easter 1964. Warinanco Park.
Collection of E. Ackermann, 2017.

That's my Mom, Mary (Dixon) Traina, in the black mushroom hat, complete with some sort of half-veil thing. No idea what is on the veil. It looks like a bug.

My Grandma, Sophie (Karvoius) Dixon, looks a lovely in neutrals, with her spiky ribbon pouf-hat. Her purse looks big enough to put me in!

 And then there's little me. Snappy double-breasted camel-hair coat, eh? You can see my whole ensemble below.

Easter 1964. Liz enduring the indignity of The Bonnet.
Warinanco Park, Union County, NJ.

Check out my little yellow suit! This may be the most well-coordinated outfit I've ever worn in my life! But really, what the heck were they thinking with the hat? The daisies are bad enough, but what's with the mound of yellow bow meringue on top?

The Easter bonnet was my least favorite holiday tradition. And I probably had a few unkind thoughts about the gloves and the saddle shoes as well. But what's a four-year-old to do?

Endure. Simply endure. The Easter baskets full of treats are on the horizon...

Things I Learned in School : GRIP

You know you're addicted to genealogy when:

1. You spend your summer vacation at a genealogy institute
2. You're having a nice time pouring through archival supply catalogs
3. You think a fun thing to do on your day off is re-humidifying old rolled photos and documents

I guess I'm hooked :-)

During the last week of June I was lucky enough to attend GRIP - The Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh. Imagine a whole week of classes immersed in one topic! In my case it was Family Archiving: Heirlooms in the Digital Age with Denise May Levenick. Does that not sound perfect for where I am right now, surrounded by family "stuff?" [Which will now officially be referred to as "The Mary Dixon Traina Collection."]

One of the nifty hands-on techniques that we learned was how to flatten rolled photos and documents without cracking or damaging them. I had read about this technique before I took the class, but was a little hesitant to try it. Doing this in class gave me the confidence to try it myself when I got home. Denise Levenick has a very thorough tutorial on her blog if you think you'd like to try it yourself.

Here's what I did to flatten my photo

 

The the secret to success here is humidity. Your tight little rolled photo or document is bone dry and needs to be relaxed so you can frame it or store it properly.

My first re-humidification project was a rolled photo. When I peeked inside it looked like a class photo. But it was very tightly rolled and the print emulsion would certainly have cracked if I had tried to flatten it out as dry as it was.

The first two photos here are my "before" pictures.

It's very important that you not unroll and try to flatten a photo or document that is in this condition.
You may cause irreversible damage.

 

To start the process, I took a large plastic bin with a lid, put some water in it and then placed a plastic coated dish rack inside. I only added enough water to make it an inch or two deep. The dish rack is the type you use to create additional storage inside your cupboards.

Then you just put on the lid and wait. It's a good idea to check on the project every few hours to make sure that no condensation is building up on the inside of the lid. You don't want water dripping on your photo or document.

After three hours my photo had started to soften up a bit and I was able to unroll it a little bit more.

It took about seven hours in the bin to get the photo relaxed enough to lay flat. Or reasonably flat. I was hesitant to leave it in the bin overnight, since I wouldn't be able to monitor the possible condensation. So at the seven hour mark I called it "good enough" and proceeded with the next step.

The photo is laying face up on top of a piece of archival blotting paper from Gaylord. On top of the photo I put a sheet of parchment paper, the kind you use for cooking and baking. Then there is another piece of archival blotting paper on top of that.

Those layers are being pressed under stacks of books. Yes, I read murder mysteries at Christmas. Please, don't judge me.

And here are the results!

Re-humidified photo, pressed and dry.

 
Getting the photograph flat revealed that it is the 1942 class photo for Theodore Roosevelt Junior High School in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The photo is not perfectly flat, but is relaxed enough that I would be comfortable framing it or putting it in flat storage [archival, of course!].

Here are two close-ups of the photo, front and back. The girl in the striped shirt with the great smile and the dimples is my mom. I love how happy she looks in the picture. 

Mary E. Dixon, right of center in the striped shirt.
Citation: Photographer unknown. Class Photograph, Theodore Roosevelt Junior High School.
1942: Elizabeth, New Jersey. Photographic Print. Mary Dixon Traina Collection, privately held.

Flattening the photo also gave me a chance to study the back of the photograph. It looks like some of Mom's classmates signed it. Transcribing all those names will be a little project. I can check the 1945 Battin High School Yearbook to see if any of the girls also graduated high school with Mom.

Names on the back of the photograph. Classmates from Theodore Roosevelt Junior High School.
Elizabeth, New Jersey. 1942.

Citation

Photographer unknown. Class Photograph, Theodore Roosevelt Junior High School. 1942: Elizabeth, New Jersey. Photographic Print. Mary Dixon Traina Collection, privately held.

Father's Day

Me with my Dad and my Mom. June 1961.

I have remarkably few photos of my father, even fewer of the two of us, and fewer still of me with both my parents. This isn't surprising considering he died when I was six years old and my parents were separated at that time. I have no memory of ever living in the same house with him.

My only memories of him involve riding in his convertible. He picked me up and took me to his parent's house for dinner nearly every Sunday. I know that he played golf, and according to his military discharge papers, he had clerical skills. Also, he worked as a salesman for a medical supply company at the time of his death.

Really, that's not much. I often wonder what kind of person he was, and how we would have gotten along as I grew up.

Anyway, this Father's Day I'm thinking about my Dad.

Happy Mother's Day

My beautiful and awesome Mom.

Mary E. (Dixon) Traina, with her daughter, Liz.
Some time in the mid-1960's.

Happy Mother's Day.

Happy Administrative Professionals Day

Remembering Mom

 

Mary E. (Dixon) Traina. Administrative Professional.
She had mad secretarial skills.

My mother was a stellar typist. Her phone manners were top notch. She always tidied her desk at the end of the day. All in all, a most excellent secretary or, as some call them today, Administrative Professional.

She eventually became an office manager, and then a branch manager for Kelly Services. But that happened several decades after this photo was taken.

Here's a bit of advice she once gave me. There are two groups of people you should always be especially kind to in any business setting : the secretaries and the maintenance staff. Those folks are the ones who can really help you get things done.

You can read more about the holiday at Wikipedia or at the International Association of Administrative Professionals web site. 

In Your Easter Bonnet

Tess, Estelle, and Sophie : The Karvoius girls.

Estelle Karvoius, Mary Dixon,
Tess (Karvoius) Starzyinski, Alice (Rimkus) Karvoius,
Sophie (Karvoius) Dixon

Sophie (Karvoius) Dixon, Liz Traina, Mary (Dixon) Traina.
And Jet, the dog.

Mary E. Dixon : High School Graduate

Battin High School, Class of 1945

Here are some treasures found this week in my mother's 1944 Battin High School Yearbook. I don't know why she had a 1944 yearbook when she graduated in 1945.

Commencement Program cover for
Battin High School, Class of 1945

If Battin organized homerooms alphabetically,
these are the girls that sat next to Mary.

Wouldn't you love to know what the
"Miscellaneous" offerings were in 1945?

That's Mary E. Dixon seated on the far right.
This was taken on graduation day. The photographer helpfully stamped the date on the back.

If you see any familiar faces here, give me a shout. Also, if you think you might have a 1945 Battin grad in your family I'd be glad to check the program for names.

Sophie (Karvoius) Dixon & Her Children in 1928

The good thing about scanning photos is that each image gets your undivided attention for at least a little while. Instead of being just a pile of pictures, each picture becomes a piece of a puzzle. Looking closely at each image and logging a description in my photo log can give me missing insights and connections in the larger family story.

My big discovery this week was a set of photos taken on the same day, and labeled with the year. They feature my great-grandmother, grandmother, her sister, and some friends. Better still, my Mom and her brother are there too. These may be the youngest I've ever seen them! This set of photos, with dates on them, help me connect the dots to other images that I have.

The first photo is of my great-grandmother,
Alice Karvoius. She was 45 years old in 1928.

Alice (Rimkus) Karvoius, Sophie (Karvoius) Dixon,
an unidentified friend, and Sophie's sister,
Estelle Karvoius, holding a baby.
In 1928, Sophie was 22 and Estelle was 19 years old.

 

Unidentified friend, left,
Sophie Dixon, on the right,
holding Mary Elizabeth Dixon,
Wallace A. Dixon in front.

This third photo is the one that gives me another clue to help me identify the people in other photos.

That's my grandmother standing on the right. The photo is dated 1928. My uncle, Wallace A. Dixon was born in July of 1926, and my mother was born in October of 1927. I believe that the child my grandmother is holding is my Mom, Mary Elizabeth Dixon, and the toddler standing in front of her is my Uncle Wally. Here are some close-ups from the photo.

Mary Elizabeth Dixon, born 1927,
with her mother, Sophie (Karvoius) Dixon

Wallace Andrew Dixon, born 1926.
Son of Wallace B. and Sophie Dixon.

You've seen my Uncle Wally in a previous post, The Mystery of the Boy With the Boutonierre. He's the toddler standing in front of the group.

Little Wally Dixon,
as seen here.

I was only guessing that it was him, based on family resemblance. But this photo gives me more evidence that it is him. It also helps with an estimated date for that photo.
 
There are only a few mysteries related to these photos. Who are the unidentified women, and where in Elizabeth Port was the picture taken? If you have any clues for me, please get in touch!