My parents had two families

Well, at the Bathauer breakfast meeting this last Saturday my uncle Fran was looking for an old picture of his father, Sam, for Dr. Reardon. Fran wants to find the old photo of Sam standing in front of the store. My mother has a copy of such a picture, but she can't remember who she loaded it to last. She had several old pictures in a big envelope that she has been letting family members borrow to make copies and then return to her. This brought up the subject of family photos and photos of children.

My mother remarked that she must have 1500 photos of my younger sister Lori and some pictures of her other children as well. Her other children being my older sister Kay and myself.
She was almost apologetic about having so many pictures of Lori. But, when Lori came along my parents had the money to buy film and get it developed. Some explanation: my sister Kay is about 18 months older than me so we grew up together, my sister Lori is 16 years younger than me so she was basically an only child. My parents were in a much better place financially when Lori came along. Jan and I both commented on how we remembered having rolls of film and had wait until we had the money to get them developed.

We talked about the convenience of digital cameras and Jason and Emily needing a good camera with their first child on the way. (Side note to Jason, "I don't want to here it.") I put in the side note because my son Jason always comments on how we have so many pictures of his older sister, Marni, our first child, and that the few pictures we have of him usually have Marni in them as well. But all of you parents with more than one child know how that goes.

Enough asides. If any Bathauer family members have mom's packet of pictures or a copy of the picture of grandpa Bathauer in front of the store, let mom or uncle Fran know, they need a copy.

A few more people were there this week: my mother, Ruby, my aunt Natalie, aunt Orpha, uncle Fran and his wife Wanda, my cousin Ginger and my wife and I.