Tom, the Lad - and Ray and Mary Lipinski

Poker game is going in Buffalo, 1949 or thereabouts:  Tom as a lad, CHM, Uncle Ray Lipinski, mystery little girl, Auntie Mary Lipinski, Gertrude Matynka.

[  EDIT: Mystery little girl must be Joanne Lipinski, daughter of Ray and Mary.  ]

This is my identification of Uncle Ray and Auntie Mary.  My memory of him is of a big and jolly giant who often had a cigar.  He was an electrician and handyman: he showed up one day in Marilla with a heavy piece of plate glass that fit my desk perfectly.  He did the wiring in the kitchen and in the bathroom where my Dad always shaved in the mornings.  Auntie Mary was petite, voluble, and cheerful.

Christmas!  CAMZ, Gertrude, Mary Lipinski, mystery little girl, CHM, Eugene Zdrojewski, Ray Lipinski.  Foreground: Adam, Tom, toy auto repair shop.

Elvis??!!    No, it is his contemporary, Tom.  A much nicer guy.

Tom and CHM admiring yet another mystery baby.

Two Claras and a mystery baby.

I love this school photo!  What a great kid!  And I love that rootin'-tootin' bowlegged cowboy on his shirt!

The early 1950s.  Check out the Stop-sign bolo tie.  It's wonderful.

Hard to believe, isn't it, that this darling, angelic lad would soon be showing his little nephew Martin Zdrojewski how to shoot arrows over the Marilla house?

School Days Autograph Book, 2 of 2

School Days Autograph Book

Clara Matynka, our CAMZ, attended a multi-grade primary school in South Wales, New York.  In 1937 she was eight years old.

By 1940, she had an autograph book, 4 1/2 by 6 inches.

"Davy St." is a good and proper address for a village called South Wales.

Mom said that Miss Crowley taught her class never to use the word "get" in an English composition.  They should think of something better, more apt, less hackneyed.  And they should get used to doing so.  (I added that last part.)

See the "Miss Whalen" 8th-grade teacher?  There was a Connie Whalen in my class at Iroquois, 25 years later.

New and different address, "Goethe Street."  Hard to imagine that in South Wales, New York.  So perhaps they had moved back to Buffalo by 1940.  CAMZ packed this book and took it with her in the move.

Who are cousin Ray and cousin Gerrie?  I remember a fabulous "Uncle Ray Lipinski."  Could that be "Cousin Ray?"

"Your cousin Mary Lipinska."  Who are these cousins?

More gems of the autographic art to follow - Julie