Three Peas in a Pod

This week the Sepia Saturday prompt photograph features a lineup of three choir boys. I have no photos of choir boys or anything remotely similar in my family collection, so instead I'm re-posting one of my favourite photographs.

 I included this photo almost four years ago in a a blog on groups of three but that was a while ago now. The lady in the middle is my grandmother Mona Morrison nee Forbes, whose wedding anniversary I featured last week, and she is flanked by her two unmarried sisters Bess and Flo Forbes, who lived very close to the Morrison family and were a great help to Mona with her six children. The date was Christmas Day 1949. In her album my mother Jean has captioned the photo 'The Three Girls'. The floral dresses worn by the sisters would no doubt have been made by Aunty Bess, who was a professional dressmaker. They look very similar here but of course may have looked quite different in colour. Flora was the eldest of the Forbes girls, born in Canterbury NZ in 1888,  with Bess just a year later in 188. You can see a sweet photograph of little Flora and Bess here.  

Two more children, John ( 1891) and Ruby (1892) were born to parents Charles Forbes and Jane Isabella Young  before Mona arrived, 7 years after Bess in 1897. Baby Mary born 1900 did not survive but the Forbes' 7th and last child Charles was born on 1902. By 1949 the age difference between Mona and her sisters wasn't all that obvious, but nor was it in this photo of the four Forbes girls together as young women, seen here, .

The next snap is correspondingly captioned 'The Three Boys' and appears on the same page of the album. It features my mother's young brother Peter Morrison aged 12, father/ Mona's husband John Morrison and another of the Morrison boys, Graeme, looking very suave and debonaire as anyoing man of 17. 

Below is is the photo placed in between the two above on the album page, showing the whole family group in the garden on Christmas Day, with my mother sitting in front beside her brother Peter. My parents were engaged at this time and my father Ian Cruickshank was sharing the family celebration with his future in-laws, so he must have been the photographer here. 

Jean and Ian were married a few months later and their first child yours truly was born on Peter's fifteenth birthday. It was always easy to remember when my Uncle Peter's birthday was and how much older he was than me, but he and his wife Doreen never let me forget that some 21 years later when visiting them I blythely suggested that at 36 they must be middle-aged, my reasoning being that twice that age would be over 70. In fact Peter never really became old, as he passed away from cancer at the relatively young age of 56, but Doreen will celebrate her 80th birthday this year.

You may find more reverent blogs by other Sepia Saturday members here at Sepia Saturday # 362.  Now my husband and I are off for the weekend to celebrate his birthday. Not mine as yet, but we are the same age, so you can work it out from the above. We're just middle aged, of course!