THE SONGS OF A NIGHTINGAIL

  My family liked to picnic in the snow.  This was in 1961 at Heavenly Valley ski resort, Lake Tahoe.  Sandwiches and hot chocolate!  L-R: youngest sis, brother, me, middle sis, and Mom.  Dad was the photographer. Another year (1964) we were headed home from a weekend family trip to the snow looking for a nice spot off the road to have a picnic lunch when it started hailing like crazy.  So we had our picnic lunch in the car! 1967 – yet another picnic in the snow.  My Mom’s choice of seat was the garbage can!  Next to her is her mother, my Grandma Louise.  Next is me, and then my youngest sister & her then boyfriend. No longer in the snow, but not all that warm as it wasn’t quite summer yet at New Brighton Beach (CA).  But we picnicked gamely before searching the beach for interesting driftwood. Mom & Dad So now we were at the beach in the summer of 1962 on Stinson Beach.  It was often windy there and sometimes not all that warm.  On this day we were sitting behind the sand dun

  So six years after he took the girl down the street to the movies, in 1957 Christopher met a nice young girl on a beach at Lake Tahoe.  He lived in Southern California, however, and she lived in the San Francisco Bay area.  They wrote letters to each other for a while, but the pen-pal relationship gradually faded.  Then in 1961 he came up to the Bay Area to attend the University of California at Berkeley and they dated for a while, but it didn’t last. Six years later they met again and this time something clicked! J They were married in 1968 and this summer will celebrate their 56 th wedding anniversary. J Their son was born the following year – seen here with his dad in 1969 And in 2007 That son with his mom in 1969 And in 2007 Backtracking a bit: That son with his new sister in 1972 And with his sister in 1991. They each had their own dates to the prom, but the photographer thought it would be fun to do a brother-sister shot as well and what a great shot it turned out to be! H

  Once upon a time there was a young man – Henry (Harry) Edgar Brasier, seen here with his dog.  He still had a little growing up to do, but he was on his way. There was also a lovely young woman, Lillian Ross Pringle on the left, (who preferred to be called “Ross”), here with one of her older sisters – Florence, I believe.  Ross had 3 older sisters, and 6 older brothers.  She was the youngest of 12 children. (Two, who would have been older brothers, died at young ages.)   And here are their mothers: On the left is Harry’s mother, Annie (Weatherhead) Brasier, and on the right, Ross’s mother, Margaret (Forbes) Pringle. It is not recorded how the young man and young woman met, but meet they did, fell in love, and in 1909, were married. Here are the lovebirds on their honeymoon.  She was 28, and he was 30. The following year, 1910, Ross was holding her firstborn – a little girl they named Virginia Rossmore Brasier. Two years later Virginia had a younger sister, Phyllis, both seen here