Friday, December 24, 2010

Seasons Greetings The Forrai's 1963


Subject: David and Louis Forrai.
Occasion: Christmas.
Date: 1963.
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Photographer: Joseph Frank Forrai.
Relationship to me: Parents, Joseph and Norma.

For the first four weeks in December, I decided to post the Christmas cards that my parents started sending in 1960. I think almost everyone is familiar with the photo holiday cards that some folks choose to send.

You may wonder where my father had these cards made? My dad had a dark room in the house where we lived. Photography was my dad's hobby since the 1940's. Each one of these cards were hand made.

How was the photograph taken? In the early years my dad used a portrait camera. There was a long cable attached to the camera. He routed it so it would not appear in the photograph. He would squeeze the button to take the photograph. In later years, he had a 35mm camera with a built in timer. My father aways used a tripod, and it would take him a good deal of time for the set up for these annual photographs.

You can see over the past several weeks, that the early Christmas greetings centered around the fireplace. The stuffed animal in the photograph was made by my Grandmother Lucy Traulsen Waswo. She was very creative, and I always loved the animals she made. The one in the photograph was a little dog that I had named 'Brownie'. The stockings hung by the fireplace were knit by my mother, Norma Forrai. I still have that sock and it hangs on the door knob in the family room this very day.

It amazes me, how many of my relatives and friends of our family have hung onto these photographs. I am not the only one with a collection!

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