one christmas

Barbara and Betty at Grandma and Grandpa Smiths at Christmas. I think I was 8 years old but don't remember. We loved these dolls and grandma made the dresses and knit the sweater, caps and booties. I remember one time Betty insisted that "toodles" had a cold and she rubbed vicks all over her chest. From that day on we could tell which doll was which and which was hers and which was mine. The vicks really discolored the clothe body of the doll . Grandma always gave us a new doll at Christmas.
The pictures was taken on the board walk in front of the house. You can see a bit of the Christmas tree in the window. The house was on the Pennisula in Long Beach with Alamitos bay on one side and the ocean on the other. One time during a terrible story before Long Beach put in the breakwater a big log was washed up by the huge waves and it went right through the front window. They don't have tides anymore since the breakwater.

great grandfather's wedding certificate

This is the wedding certificate of my great grandmother and great grandfather., Judson Losse and Alice Flagg. It is very hard to read as I only have a scanned copy but I copied what it said below. My grandmother was Bessie Losse and her father was Judson Losse. They had 3 children Gracie, Bessie and Harry.

My Great Grandfather & Grandmother Smith

These pictures were taken around 184o in London, England.
My grandfather Percy was b0rn in Sussex, England in April 1881.

Percy Hirst Smith

More old pictures. This is multiple pictures of Percy Hirst Smith. He was born in England and came to the USA.
A couple of these pictures were taken in British Columbia. I am not sure of any of the dates. The picture in the middle is how I remember him to look. Cameron sent me all of these pictures to which I am grateful. There are still more and I will blog them in a few days. The copies she sent were a bit larger but it takes a lot of room and printing so I condensed them. I haver seen any of these pictures before and the last time I say Grandpa Smith was in 1947.

This is a picture of my Grandmother and Grandfather Smith. They were my dad Walter Hirst Smith's parents.Not sure when it was taken but they look pretty young. Cameron (my cousin) sent me this.

old apt house!

Another old picture. This is the house on 4th street downtown Long Beach, Ca that Emily Potter owned.
She lived in the apartment on the rt of the picture and Aunt Blanche lived in the apt on the left. I remember visiting when I was about 5 years old. It was a different kind of place because it had 1 toilet downstairs in the back hall for the downstairs apts to use and 1 upstairs for the upstairs apts. I remember it being dark and the toilet seat was a funny color of black or dark brown. I did not like to use it unless veryyyyy necessary. Great Grandma always had cookies but we had to have oatmeal first. The very small kitchen was had very dark wood cupboards and wood drain boards. There was a pull down bed in the living room. I don't remember if there was a bedroom. Great grandma was always in her rocking chair. She had very white hair that was a little bit yellow and and my mother said that it was because she only washed it once a month or longer. She always had on a long black dress with a white lace collar. I remember the funniest things but I was only 5 when she passed away.
In the summer when my mother was young they would visit great grandma and from there they would go to the pike or the beach. I think in some of the pictures you can see my mother and Aunt Lucille in front on the steps.
There are new apts there now and I went down a couple of years ago to see the house and get pictures but it has been torn down and the apts were build. This is the only I have and it was sent to me by a cousin.

more pictures

This is Obediah Wellington Rose and Emily Pinney with their children. This must have been about 1992 or 3 as Peal who is in the center was 3 years old when they came to California and Obediah has passed away before that. I know that Olive and Blanche were the other 2 girls and Carl was one of the boys.

More old pictures

My cousin Eleanor Martinez in Arizona sent me these pictures. She is the grandaughter of Dorothy MacDonald Aunt Blanche's daughter.

This is a picture of Pearl Rose Potter, Blanche Rose MacDonald and Olive Rose DeRemer. They are 3 sisters. Pearl is the youngest and Olive is the oldest. I remember all three of them and used to visit Aunt Olive in San Fernando. Uncle Ed and Aunt Olive had an orange grove and I remember Uncle Ed getting up very early in the morning to set out the smuge pots. After the 1933 earthquake in Long Beach my mother, sister and I lived at their house for a good 6 months.

This is my mother's sister, Lucille Potter Miller, Dorothy MacDonald(Aunt Blanche's Daughter), someone named Vera who I don't know and Evelyn, my mother. This picture is in Long Beach down by the Pier. I love to look at the clothes and notice the bathing suits on the people in the background.

old pictures

A cousin in Arizona sent me these pictures of our family. I had never seen a picture of Obediah Wellington Rose before.
He died when Pearl Potter (my grandmother) was 3 years old. This was before the Pinney family left Missouri by covered wagon and came to California. She has more pictures to send so I will blog them when I get them. I am not sure of the date on any of these or just when Emily married Mr. Roberts. After they were divorced or he passed away (I am not sure which) she married A J Potter,who was Milo Potter's father. This made Grandma Pearl and Grandpa Milo step brother and sister as well as man and wife. I know that Emily did not marry A J Potter untill some time after Pearl and Milo had been married for some years. Family history has so many stories.

Obediah Wellington Rose and Emily May Pinney Rose. This is a picture of Pearl Potter's parents.

Emily Pinney Rose

Emily Pinney Rose

Emily Rose Pinney Roberts Potter

Haven't posted anything on my blog for quite a while so decided I should. The month of June was a busy one. We went to Colorado for Chelsey's wedding and then tried to play catch up when we got home. The wedding was special even though there was rain,hail, ligtning and thunder. I was told by my therapist that a tradition in Mexico was that if it rained on your wedding day you would have a long and fruitful marriage. So Chelsey and Brad it sounds good for you.


When we came home we got busy moving fom the upstairs bedroom to the downstairs one. It was hard for me to do as we had such a comfortable one up there. No fireplace, no closet , 1 chest of drawers and not as much room besides the bathroom has 1 sink and is a bit crowed for 2 people. As David said I need to be flexible and make things work. We bought a portable closet to hang clothes and I put my other things in the cupboards in the bathroom. If I want something that isn't downstairs Dad has to go up and get it for me. After 3 months of not being up there I have forgotten just what is there. We bought a new mattress set so I can sleep in the bed instead of the hospital bed. Life does change and I am trying to be Flexible. Somehow it will have to work even though I don't like it.

Love reading the blogs and keeping up with the ones of you who keep them up. Of course I am guilty for not doing it either and will try to get better. Really have no excuse.

lost and found

My father had 2 sisters, Aunt Dorothy and Aunt Winifred. Last night I recieved a phone call from a lady who had found me on google she asked me some questions. She caought me up on my 2 aunts and had questions regarding my father.
My Aunt Dorothy married at the age of 50 and has since passed away and she had no children. I had not seen her since I was 12 years old. Aunt Winifred had 2 girls. Lynn and Cameron. Aunt Winifred has since passed awayalso. I had no way of connecting with any of my cousins as I didn't even know their names. The phone call turned out to be my first cousin Cameron Pilchard Kelsey. For years I have wondered where these 2 cousins were but I couldn't trace them because I didn't know their names. I did know that the oldest one was named Lynn and I did see her once when she was a baby. Cameron was born when I was about 15 and I didn't know anything about her except that she was Lynn's sister. Anyway, it was rather exciting to finally know where they are and what their names are. Lynn lives in Santa Maria and Cameron lives in Prescott, Arizona. We talked on the phone today and Cameron is going to send me some pictures etc. of the family. I only have 5 formal pictures of Grandma and Grandpa Smith and my 2 aunts and my dad. Not only that but I really didn't know any of the history of the Smith family so she said she would catch me up on some history. She did say that she had the names of Grandpa Smith's mother and father and a picture of Grandpa and his brothers and sisters. I didn't know he even had any. I can then forward it to Leslie as she is keeping all of the family records. I know that on the Smith's side of the family there were only my sister and I and Lynn and Cameron. On the Potter side there was my cousin Glenn and My Sister and I. Glenn has since passed away also. No one else is probably interested but I have a mystery solved!

Gorgeous flowers

I opened the door this morning and there was a beautiful bouquet on my doorstep form
Dan, Dawn and Chelsey. Thank you for the Mother's Day flowers. Love you all!

Matt's birthday

Matt and the kids came to our house on Sunday and brought a delicious dinner that Katy had made.

Sadie loved the cake and had all of her fingers int and then proceeded to suck her fingers with all of the frosting and cake. Needless to say she loved it!!!!

I have a cupie doll and we all think that Sadie looks just like it.

Bob was helping Max and Jack to a second helping of cake.
You can tell by their faces that they loved it.
A fun time was had by all!!!!!

Beautiful Iris

Isn't it pretty? My friend gave me quite a few Irises and they are now starting to bloom. Many different colors. He will give me some more when it comes time to divide them. He has a whole garden full of these beautiful flowers. When I was in the hospital he brought me a gorgeous bouquet of Iris and roses.

new construction

bob spent a week and built the new porch railings. they really enhance the house.
what do you think?

we aren't supposed to fly!

it has been a while since i have blogged. things have bee pretty busy and the year started out kind of crazy. the best was getting to visit the horns in tx , even though it was for a root canal by my wonderful grandson neal. that turned iut just fine but it was feb before the crown was on and it was all finished. the rest of feb was pretty uneventful and then on the 3rd of mar i let curiosity get the best of me. you know the saying curiosity killed the cat! well, some workmen were putting cones in the street and of course i wondered why. soooo as i was hurrying out the front door my foot came out of my shoe on the second step and i went flying onto the brick walk.
God did not intend for us to fly like that and i can attest to that. i couldn't move and am so glad that bill was home. he called the paramedics ad they delivered me to ER at kaiser. soon everyone knew i had fallen. the paramedics were friends with others i knew and the phone calls started coming the next day. anyway it tuned out i broke my pelvis and my right arm. not fuN.
the good part though it wasn't my hip! the best part is that all of my family called and i got to talk to them. now it is just taking time to heal. i will!!!!!!
bob built railings on the front porch and i Will USE THEM. will blog a picture later because tey look really great and were a lot of work. they should have been there in the beginning. of course i would have been hurrying and not used them. no more! next month will be MUCH better.

dress up time!!!!!

Matt And Katy and the children all came for dinner last night. Annie , Jack
and Max dressed up and were acting very silly
so Matt took a picture of them. They are
so much fun and what a blessing to
have them come here for dinner
and to play.

rub a dub dub!

Rub a dub dub 5 littles ones in a tub. Isn't this the cutest picture.
They all wanted to take a bath in Grammy's big bathtub. It was just hard to get them all out as they were haveing a good time.

A quick trip!

The last 3 days was so much fun. I was able to spend the time with these adorable little ones and Leslie and Neal. It was a good time and Neal did a root canal for me too. Leslie took me to Audrey and Parker's school and we had lunch with Audrey in the lunchroom. Then we took sa ride to where there is a house being built that they are interested in. It was a quick trip but i loved being able to see them all and really giving them some hugs. It was a great and wonderful 3 days.

Bob and his two little sons!!!! Milo and Tyler
Tyler came to visit over Christmas. He is really a nice young man and because
he is bigger than his dad we forget that he is only 12. He and Milo spent some time together
playing Tyler's new wii game. We enjoyed him as we have not seen him much in
the last few years. Just thought I would share a picture of the 3 of them.