This is a photo from a time when I still liked to celebrate birthdays. I found it while sorting through boxes of old pictures last summer.
I’m the one in the middle with a hat and (typically) eyes closed. The girl to my left in glasses is a blog follower who attended my Sunday School. On her lap is my dear baby sister, who died of glioblastoma last year. To my right is one of two friends from my nursery school days that I keep in touch with on Facebook. The other is standing a bit behind her and to her right, with glasses.
Another of the partygoers has since died. One became a celebrated author and professor. One was ordained and headed a school in Wilmington. Another became an artist. She’s the one sitting next to my sister and wearing a big grin. On her lap is a girl who became a professional weaver. A cousin in the picture taught in inner city schools for years and later went into politics and conservation. I’m not sure what everyone else ending up doing, but I’m enjoying remembering each in turn.
I’ll also mention someone not in the picture, a former neighbor, now known as Caroline, who follows this blog. She helped me one year with writing birthday party invitations. I still remember her line about how the invitee should come “to my humble abode on Haverstraw Road”! Too funny. She thought an invitation should rhyme.
Art: Wayne Thiebaud/ National Gallery of Art
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Oh my, I see Patsy Carr, back row, third from the right, and I can picture my sister dictating “humble abode on Haverstraw Road” which we lived in when you left and turned the Lawn Cottage over to people with some younger kids.
Earle Cummings
>
I never knew the cottages had names until you told me. As you may have guessed, that birthday party was a pool party.
Wonderful photo! Was it your whole class from school and neighbor girls?
Girls from school and Sunday School, a few other friends, relatives, etc.
The big place you lived was “The Manor House” with the “Dexter Manor” gateposts, and you and the Blanchards lived there, while Herald and Marian Cox were in the Brook Cottage, and we were in the Lawn Cottage after the Jukes family left.
Thank you!
This is such a wonderful photo and reminds me of all our times as children and teenagers. I still have the pendant with my name engraved on it you gave me for one birthday as well as the Eloise book which I read to my three granddaughters. Do you connect with Paula and Sara? Their mother just died this winter after 103 or more years. Our choir director Adele moved to Maine when we were in high school and we connected several times over the years. She and her daughter both have since died. I do remember it as a pool party. Your mother was so courageous to have so many girls to a party. Thank you for sharing this!
Oh, good. I was hoping you’d see this, Gail! I connect occasionally with Sara — for example she lets me know when she’s reading a new book at my local shop, and I was invited to her mother’s service in Boston (but it had to be indefinitely postponed because of you-know-what. Will we ever be free of this virus!)
I am friends with Paula on Facebook but have no address for Sara. I think of her often as well and have several of her books. Give her my best.