Thursday, September 03, 2015

Their First Child

My maternal grandparents with their oldest child, my Aunt Marita Butler (Brimhall.) 
My second cousin recently photographed this in the home of her parents
and I copied it from her Facebook post. 
Is this the way we do history now???
Her father, Dwayne Butler Brimhall, was the oldest child of this baby;
he died two years ago at the age of 84. 
These ancestors were married in 1900, on the cusp of the Twentieth Century,
so this image would have been taken within the next couple of years. 
I think the young family was still living 
in the Mormon Mexican Colonies at this time. 
When they had to leave during the unrest at the time of the Mexican Revolution,
this grandmother was pregnant with my mother, her third child,
who was born in Douglas, Arizona in 1907.
This was definitely a time when it took a great deal of fabric 
to make a dress, even for a baby!
If this picture were sharper, I am almost certain we could see
(on her left hand resting on his shoulder) her gold wedding band,
which has now been entrusted to me, and which 
is still inscribed inside with their initials and the date of their marriage.

This is a very interesting folkloric frame, I will ask my cousin
if she knows anything about it;
it looks as if it had been carved from wood and painted
or coated with silver in some way.
I wonder how old it is, and how long this picture has been in it!


A Path Through Grass

A path through grass
worn as an old hoehandle
and pale as silver.
The silent things
that build bridges so many places,
roads after dead people, a handle,
a path in the field
moves like an unreal thing through the summer,
moon bridges built over the green seas.

Rolf Jacobsen
translated from the Norwegian by Robert Bly
The Roads Have Come to an End Now;
selected and last poems of Rolf Jacobsen, translated 
by Robert Bly, Roger Greenwald and Robert Hedin, 
Copper Canyon Press, 2001, page 63.

7 comments:

  1. Susie's father, Lemuel H Redd was quite a wood carver. I would not be at all surprised if he hand carved the frame.

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  2. Susie's father, Lemuel H Redd was quite a wood carver. I would not be at all surprised if he hand carved the frame.

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  3. I'll ask my Mom Neva Kerby Brimhall about the frame… I don't know if it has any historical significance… She'll know. I loved the poem you wrote about them leaving MX at the time… It was read at her funeral. Glad you have that ring!

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  4. I do believe it's a plaster frame, but there's so many frames over there I get disoriented.

    Bamball = Douglas Dwayne Brimhall

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  7. I do believe it's a plaster frame, but there's so many frames over there I get disoriented.

    Bamball = Douglas Dwayne Brimhall

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