Family Photos and Happiness

Before you ask, I missed Week 1. The theme was "Fresh Start," and somehow it got away from me. I absolutely could not let this week's theme slip by unfinished. 

My dad was a photographer, as I have mentioned before. He provided lots of favorites to our family photo collection. Most of them are pictures of our family.  We traveled a lot, and there are some great ones!

He also took pictures for his job at Ralston Purina Company. After he died, they became part of our family story - some more than others. My favorite example is a picture he took of some piglets. I think they were suckling, but they were all lined up, lying on their sides. There were 7 piglets, and it was a fairly large photo on foam board. 

When my sister and her husband moved into my parents house, my brother-in-law wanted to take down the photo of me and my sisters taken in the 1980s which had been proudly hung over their piano for about 30 years. It was kind of a sad day, because we didn't know what to do with it. We couldn't think of anyone who loved all three of us enough to display it, so we considered sending to our cousin Chris as a joke. In true Kienlen spirit, we turned that sad realization into a fun memory.  We wrote the names of our children (my dad's 7 grandchildren) on the pigs and hung it in its rightful place over the piano.

Somehow it seems appropriate to choose a photo of my dad as my current favorite. He was probably about 3, so I guess this was taken in the summer of 1936 or 1937. They lived either in Maplewood (St. Louis County) or St. Louis City at this point, but they could have been visiting friends.

Dad had a cute little outfit on, and a big smile on his face. It is clearly summer, and there are plants growing behind him. Maybe they were tomatoes or roses, his two favorite things to grow. George and Margaret Kienlen weren't rich, and I'm sure they couldn't give him everything they wanted to, but it looks like he was happy.

Dad once told me a story about a time he and his mom went to the Muny (St. Louis Municipal Opera - an outdoor, summer venue for mostly musicals). They took the streetcar and it started raining. The show was cancelled, and it took them a long time to get home. They were completely drenched by the time they made it. Instead of being wet and miserable, his mom (Margaret Emily Dunsford Kienlen) laughed and laughed about it. He said his mom's reaction made quite an impression on him, and, fortunately for us, he passed that optimism on down the line. His sweet, smiling face in this photo is a great reminder to look for the joy around us.  Maybe that's why he liked taking pictures. People are usually smiling. They are usually happy or doing fun things. What a great job that must have been, even if pigs can't smile.

So, here's a challenge for anyone reading this. You always have a choice. You can be angry or upset, or you can turn it around. I would love to hear comments about a time you did this, because it feels great to read positive things. Here's mine:

Last weekend my 5 year old granddaughter spilled about 1/4 of a bag of chocolate chips. She looked at me and had a complete look of shock and maybe a little fear on her face. I looked at her and said, "Rose! Now you're going to have to eat all of those!" I've never seen a kid so happy! She didn't eat lunch, but neither of us cared.