Remembering ...

My father. It's the 63rd anniversary of his death today. I have very few photographs of him, and the lower one  is the only one where he's smiling. 

This must have been taken in his early days in the big city, around 1934. I think these young men about town are blow-ins from the Northern Isles, all dressed in their Sunday best. Daddy is third from the left.

The upper picture must have been taken about 1948. The lady beside him is his sister Adelaide, and the one obscured by a sturdy toddler (me, sporting the sunbonnet) is my mother. 

He's wearing a Fair Isle pullover, perhaps knitted by Adelaide. I still have it, and the mandolin that the photos are lying on.  

He told my mother he could play the mandolin, but she never believed him. I was amazed when, twenty five years after his death, another of my aunts unearthed it.