BADER TEENS

By the time they were teenagers, there was enough cash in the coffers for the six Bader siblings to get their portraits taken.


Some of these are school pics, some not.


Here's Bobby at age 17, ca. 1933, Falls City NE.




This is Ernie.

Grandpa (Carl George Sr.) writes on the back: "Ernie had these taken last fall for his applications." These might be his applications to college, in which case he'd be about 18, and this pic would date to around 1937.



Or it may be his applications for his first teaching job, which would date this post-college, around 1944? But I vote for 1937; he still looks so young!


(I also have a photo of him with the high school basketball team he coached, ca. 1940, so this might have been for his application for that job.)

Here is Barbara in high school, sometime between 1936-1940. I would guess she's about 15 or 16.



Barbara never liked this picture very much, but I think she looks very sweet, with her Peter-Pan collar and little Mona Lisa smile.

This is Jeannie in high school. I love this photo!


The original frame is marked very clearly, in Barbara's handwriting, "Jeanne, 1937, Wayne, Nebr."

So Jeannie would be about 15.



 

Here is Carl George Jr., at about age 18. Barbara writes on the back, "C. Geo, about 1942," when the family was living in Holdredge, NE.



The younger members of the family, anyway: by 1942-3, Jeannie and Barbara were already living in California.

And finally, here's a nice portrait of Philip. In Steve's handwriting on the back (writing for Barbara) it says, "Philip Bader, about 16, c. 1948," which looks about right, age-wise.


Of course, by 1948, all the other siblings were long out of the house, since, Philip was so much younger than the rest. (Carl Jr., closest to him in age, was 8 years older.) I include this portrait here so we can take a look at all the Bader kids at about the same age, in their mid-to-late teens.


I have a lot more pics of Philip as a boy in the early 1940s, which I will post soon!

HIDDEN TREASURES

So there I was, rooting around in my mom's things the other day, looking for something else, and I found these two items. I knew they had to go up on the blog!

This is a formal portrait of J. R. Bader, immigrant from Hugsweier, Germany, proprietor of the Bader Furniture Company, father of Carl George (Sr.) and founder of our family line in America.

There's no photographer's mark or any other identification on the photo, but it says "J. R. Bader" on the back in Barbara's handwriting (the very careful script of her later years, when writing had become a challenge for her). And look at his face: his expression looks so much like our "Grandpa Bader," Carl Sr. (Except for the mustache, of course!)

Again, no date on this photo, but J. R. Bader died in 1929 at age 65, so I'd guess this was taken sometime in the  mid-'teens or early 1920s.

Here is a page from the Marriage Certificate of our McAfee forebears, George McAfee and Francis Elizabeth Cowell. 

As you can see, although they may have met on Prince Edward Island, they were married in Worcester, Mass, where they raised their family—Harold, Edna (future bride of Carl Sr.), Mary Ellen ("Minnie"), and George Wyman.

It's interesting that both sets of great-grandparents married in the same year. J. R. Bader married Emma Elsner  on May 25, 1887, at  Arlington, Nebraska; George McAfee and Francis Cowell married September 24, 1887, at Worcester.

Love must have been in the air in 1887! Fortunately for all of us.

YOUNG BADERS

Here's a photo of Barbara, age 9 (ca. 1930).  Isn't she cute? Pictures of Barbara in her girlhood always remind me of Kiera when she was little—especially this one!


I assume this is a (badly hand-tinted) school picture; it's glued onto colored construction paper in the form of a small card, so this was probably a school project to make cards for the parents.


Inside, Barbara has written, possibly in crayon: "Me in a (...)" I can't make out the last word, but it might be "beret," which seems to make sense.




 Photos of the eldest Bader brothers, Bobby and Ernie, in childhood are just about nonexistent (except for those few I've already posted). But here's a candid pic of Jeannie as a young teen (of course, it's not dated!), probably mid-1930s.

(Btw, this wire-haired terrier appears in family photos throughout the '30s and '40s. I've always heard about "Doc, the dog," but I have no idea if this is the same Doc in all these photos, or if the Baders had more than one dog named Doc.)


 Here's a candid portrait of three generations of Baders. I don't know where of when it was taken, but judging from the age of Philip (far right), I guess maybe 1937 or '38.

That's clan matriarch Emma Elsner Bader (wife of J. R. Bader) in the foreground. Directly behind her is her daughter, Alma (Carl George Sr's younger sister). Behind Alma is Ernie, and to the right, younger brother Carl George Jr., Edna (Maudie), and little Philip. Carl George Sr. is standing at the left.

The two little girls (identified in another photo I have) are Joan Bader (in front of Carl Sr.) and her sister, Gretchen Bader (next to Philip). They are the daughters of Carl Sr's youngest brother, Jean Bader (he was the child sitting on the moon with mama, Emma, in that vacation postcard I posted awhile ago). Jean does not appear in this photo, but I assume that's his wife, Sara Marshall, mother of the girls, standing between Carl Sr. and Alma.

Here's another snapshot of little Philip and his Bader cousins. Gretchen (left) is one year younger than Philip (born 1933); Joan (right) is two years older (born 1930).

Below is one last image. I'm pretty sure that's Philip (with his very distinctive asymmetrical hairline!), but I'm not at all sure those are Gretchen and Joan in the photo with him. (But then again, who else would it be, so close to his age?) Nor do I have a clue where this was taken. Surely not a parish house; it looks like the steps to a library or some other public building.

But I post this because Philip looks so debonair and soulful for his age!