Vintage Family Photos in Two Harbors & Lake Superior

     By Cordelia (Scott) Mendoza

     (Reprinted from Cottage Antiques blog)

     My mother, Eileen Rose Busby, passed away five years ago on April 6, so I have been reflective all week. I posted a tribute to her on Facebook and pulled out some of her old albums. I found some wonderful photos of my grandparents and great-grandparents. What a treasure. I am posting some of my Grandmother, Esther Rose, my mom's mother who I was fortunate to spend a lot of time with until her death in 1990 at the age of 89.

Here is a photo of her and her friends in 1920. Look at those babes:

 

                                                                                                . . . in the "Old swimming Hole"

Below, here is Grandma Rose at about 16 years old. I love the homes in the background.

This was at the end of the Arts and Crafts period, right before the Roaring '20s. Her outft completely fits the era.

Here's a great photo of what looks to be a general goods store in Two Harbors. Gram's off for some shopping, looks like to me. Date, circa 1918

Grandma and Grandpa were raised in Two Harbors, Minnesota. He was 12 years older and had gone away to war. He came home to Two Harbors. She always said "he was the most eligible boy in town". They fell in love, married and traveled across country to San Diego in 1922, the year my mom was born.

Frank & Esther, my grandparents. My grandfather was an avid swimmer and canoer and courted my grandmother around and on Lake Superior.

(Love the outfit!)

These photos are priceless.

Eileen's Five Children

Here's a photo, circa 1955, of Eileen's five children -- the Scott family -- twins Cathleen and Cordelia (left and far right), and Jon, Sally and Michael. Eileen sewed the twins' dresses, often making a matching one for herself out of the same material.

In between sewing, gardening and raising five children, she wrote short articles and mailed off a steady stream of query letters to Ladies' Home Journal and Reader's Digest, hoping to one day get published. It would be another two decades, after her children were grown and out of the house, that one of her articles would be picked up and published by Family Circle magazine around 1975. She made a photo copy of the check and framed it -- her first of many. She was proud.

Today, Michael writes textbooks on ornothology and the study of birds, Cordelia blogs (her site was given an award), and Cathy became a newspaper reporter but now writes full-time for Best Friends magazine and Web site while also writing true crime books.