Album de Famille

The following photographs were not taken by me, but by members of my family: my grandfather Bi Papa, my mother, my father, perhaps others… I was not even born when most of these were shot! Every Christmas, when I go back to Belgium, I manage to put a few images in my suitcase without my mom noticing. Hee! Hee!

I love photographs from a distant past. I have been known to dumpster dive to save old photographs some idiot had thrown away and reconstitute whole family albums, families that were not mine but that became mine a little bit. This page however is about my clan, my peeps.  I will try to add some more as I steal them…

My mom in the forties

My mom dressing up to go riding

My grand-parents at a costume party

My mom and uncle Caco mimicking the painting at a party

My uncle Caco disguised as a rug seller

My hot mom!

My uncle Caco and My uncle Jean dressed up as les Dupont Dupont from Tintin

A party in 1960 – they all look shnokered! Bad mom, baaaad!

Nanou’s wedding

Nanou, Tita, Bi Papa and Mamour

My uncle Caco (on the left) coming home for a break from the paras

My grandmother Mamour (Valentine AKA Poucette)

My mom at the beach

My aunts Tita (Valentina) and Nanou showing legs

My sister asleep in my mom’s car

My sister (on the right) playing housemaid. She must have used up all her cleaning skills back then!

My mom, my sister, and Crack being boated around

My granddad used to go to Japan on business quite often

Mamour on the beach, wearing high heels

My mom and sister in Los Angeles

Only one year separated my cousin and I but she was definitely the boss of me.

My cousin Vilie, jealous of my pigtails, insisted on having the same hairdo

Me, buried in the sand in Ostende

I had a golden childhood but I was a sad child

Now on my dad’s side, I had to wait until after his death to obtain childhood photographs. See, my father was a strange bird. He told us that basically in the United States, he had a brother called Aloysius to whom he was not speaking anymore and that everybody else was dead. After his passing, my brother put a post about my dad on a genealogical site. A year later, he got contacted by a 22 year old guy from Chicago. He was our second cousin, Ryan. I got in touch with the new family and finally discovered my dad’s past (that’s another epic, a very sad one too.) Anyway, my dad had lied on all points. His brother was not called Aloysus (duh!), and his mom had lived until 1988.

My dad’s mom, circa 1914 perhaps

My grand parents at their wedding

The only baby pic of my dad, in 1921 I believe

My uncle “Aloysus”

My dad and his little brother in the twenties in Chicago

That’s all I have from my dad’s past. Not much… but so much better than nothing! It’s a shock to discover aunt, cousins, and highly entertaining second cousins after a whole life of believing everyone is dead!