History Lesson

While I was at my Grandma's last month we spent some time looking through some of her collections of photos. She let me take whichever ones I wanted so I thought it'd be fun to take pictures of the pictures with my phone and put them on the blog. My family is from Germany and my maiden name is Bodenmiller. My Dad found our family crest up at the lake and had a great laugh when he saw we had connections to another family- the Schrek family... that explains so much we're descendants of Shrek haha!

Here is a picture of my Great Grandpa Theodore (Ompa) in Germany at his job Iron Works before moving to the USA.

This is a picture of my Great Grandma Martha (Oma) and the boat she rode to the USA in 1927. If I remember correctly she met my Great Grandpa on this boat ride. Oma is the one with the big check mark through her hat. Hey, if things continue as they have been maybe we'll have one of these photos on our boat ride out of here? Ha!

This is their son, my Grandpa Ted

This is a picture of Grandpa Ted and my Grandma Norma on their wedding day. A cute story about my Grandma and Grandpa, they met at their college the University of Toledo. My Grandpa was in the fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon whose pin was a heart and my Grandma was in the sorority Pi Beta Phi whose pin was an arrow. When my Grandpa proposed to my Grandma and 'pinned' her it became a heart and an arrow! How sweet is that?

For their wedding they drove to Angola, Indiana with some friends to elope at this little white chapel.

They had two kids my Uncle Brad then 18 months later my Dad. Here they are after getting buzz cuts at the barber.

Hanging  out on their front porch. Doesn't my Dad (on the right) look like my nephew Max?

Here is my Dad's Senior portrait. He had some pretty groovy hair back then.

We really have been going to the lake all our lives, here is my sister in August 1982 six months old.

And then I came along two years later!

Hanging out with my Mom. Look at those curtains behind her- I don't think Julie Andrews would want to make lederhosen out of those!

My Sister and I would always want to play beauty parlor with my Grandma. She would get her hair brushes out and her bag of makeup.

I wish I had a post-picture of the beautiful clown...errr makeup styles we would do.

In our Christmas dresses. I'm not sure what the photographer's image was for this photo. Am I daydreaming about my sister?

When I was growing up my favorite cake was angel food cake with pink frosting. My Mom would make my cakes and they were always the best ever! This was my fourth birthday and my big gift for the year was my talking Mother Goose doll. Mother Goose would read stories from her books aloud to me, she was the coolest toy ever.

Here with are with my Oma and new brother David. We were so excited to have our new brother. I remember being in the waiting room wearing our Koala bear big sister shirts. My Oma and Ompa built some apartment buildings in Toledo and then when she was older she lived in one of the apartments to manage on sight. I remember when we would go to visit while my Dad did maintanence around the buildings we were roam around her apartment looking through old photos and playing with her matchbox cars. She would always buy us a bucket of KFC chicken to eat while we were there.

Here I am with David at our old house in Toledo, Ohio. The backyard had huge lilac bushes that smelled so pretty. I also remember thinking this bathing suit was really cool.

This is a picture of my Great Grandma Grace (my Mom's Grandma) my Grandma Norma and my Oma. David is opening a present so this must be a Christmas or birthday party.

I don't remember the name of this doll but I do remember how much I loved her. Her little bow had a light inside that would glow when I pushed the heart on her chest.