So Cute, You Could Eat Her Like a Cupcake

Padi Drennen at age two (1937)

Charles & Rose

Carl Traugott Mirtsching begat Richard Max Mirtsching, who married Rose Fuchs and begat Charles Henry Mirtsching and Rose Mirtsching.

Charles & Rose, c. 1908

Richard, Charles, Carl, Rose, and Rose, c. 1908

Carl, Rose & Richard; children Charles & Rose, c. 1908

Then Charles married Anna Germaty and begat Leonard, and Rose married Gustav Weidemann and begat Rosemary and Richard.

Charles, Anna, Rosemary, Rose & Gus; boys Leonard & Richard, 1938

Maw Maw & Leonard Pose with the Radio

Looks like the Mirtschings got them a new radio! And not a moment too soon, since Martians would invade Earth just a week later.

October 23, 1938

"Ach, Collie, not now. I'm reading the paper."

"It'll only take a second. Just get down in front of it. There, now pretend like you're changing the station. Now look at me and smile. Smile, Anna!"

"Just take the picture, Collie."

Anna Mirtsching and Leonard

This picture is unusual among the photographs that Leonard's father took, in that there's no date or location written on the back. He always dated photos with a rubber stamp -- a blessing to us, hundreds of years later.

circa 1938

Though most assuredly not the artistic type, my grandfather Charles (Paw Paw to us grandkids, Collie to friends and family) was a talented amateur photographer. What he might have lacked in talent, anyway, he made up in volume. My brother and sister and I have zillions of photographs he took from the twenties onward -- and a right large number he inherited, from earlier than that.

My grandmother Anna (aka Maw Maw) looks pretty severe in almost every photograph of her that I've ever seen. In fact she didn't like to be photographed, but my grandfather made her pose all the time anyway.

Note Anna's chic shoes and her marcelled hairdo. Also the boxer printed on the front of Leonard's shirt. (Click image to enlarge it.) He looks goofy, but he was only six or so, and probably didn't know or care.