Sepia Saturday 56 The Model Ts and Horse Drawn

Charlie Behrndt driving horse team in La Crescent
Appx 1920's

This is my response to the horse drawn photo on the Sepia site, from the Library of Congress.   I'm back to sorting photos from Jerry's side, ones we rescued from his 93 year old mother's stacks when we moved her into the nursing home in September.  Among our many frustrations with her is the big unanswered question, "why  didn't she share any of this stash earlier so the family might have been able to identify people and events, when folks  were alive and around when there could have been discussions?."  Such is the theme song of her life, self centered, poor decisions with little care about others as I have written about before but this is not about her only as  she is the source of these photos....  Jerry has most fond  memories of his maternal Grandpa Charlie Behrndt and knows that Grandpa Charlie did not  like to drive instead leaving the driving to Grandma Esther a diffferent attitude for that time. Charlie preferred his horses, so when we found this old photo where Aunt Marie had written across the back, "Pa, moving rail road debris"  it brought a laugh.  Unfortunately it was not dated, so we can guess it is likely the  1920's and easily identified as winter or spring thaw.    We have a very old photo, mounted on a splintered wooden board, nailed into a frame, of a rail road wreck  that came from Aunt Marie; it shows the old steamer train well off the track in the snow.  Jerry has it hanging near his evening chair downstairs; it won't scan as is and I have not been able to get a good photo of it to share here, but we think it is the same event.  We recall Aunt Marie saying that Pa (Charlie) picked up extra money when there was something to be hauled.  Notice the  gentleman standing off to the  left side  dressed with hat, that same man and others dressed like that are present in the train wreck photo.   He appears to be some sort of official overseeing the process. 



Charlie Behrndt beside the Model T appx 1923

 This photo shows Charlie dressed up beside the family auto, Model T. Reportedly the family  was not at all wealthy, but for  farmers of this time to have an auto seems somewhat on the prosperous end of things to me.  There is some speculation that the auto may have been a gift to Charlie when he and Esther married a dowry from her parents, the Wetchens.  The back of the photo and the suit Charlie is wearing (seen in other photos of the same day)  indicate it was taken at his parent's  50th anniversary,  in  1923. There's someone taking the photo, whose shadow appears in the left.  Jerry loves this photo and wants to have it enlarged and framed to hang in the relatives' gallery downstairs.

One last auto photo for this post shows Charlie's in laws, or Esther's parents, Dietrick and Louisa Wetchen coming or going in their automobile.  Aunt Marie's writing  on the top; they lived in the city--La Crosse and had come out to the farm to visit Esther and the girls.  Guessing again that this is in the 1920's but no later than 1925 because Dietrick died  August 1925.  None of the color selections that  abound now for vehicles  were available back then and really the designs show little variation, although the pair of greats  are going  top down!

This is my first Sepia Saturday post of 2011; to see  others' contributions to our international community, click on the title to this post above.