Souvenirs on the Voyage of Life

During the holidays I ran across some old postcards. Well, actually, I was nosing around in a drawer at my mother's house in Memphis and found several written by my grandfather to his grandparents in Kentucky. I love old things and especially those that revolve around family. I grew up listening to stories about parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and great aunts and uncles. These stories evoked a way of life and style of living mostly gone today. I just couldn't resist posting these pictures of the postcards and corresponding notes.  

This was written on the back of the card showing Dogwood Drive in Overton Park, Memphis, Tennessee just a few days after my grandfather moved from his birthplace, Kentucky, in 1909.

Court Square, Memphis, Tennessee, 1910

This card was written by Nancy Caroline Morehead Gibson, my great-grandmother to her sister. Lina, as my great-grandmother was called, raised my father for the first 6 years of his life. Thelma Henry Gibson, his mother,  died when he was 11 days old. I was named after Nancy Caroline (Lina.)

 A card signed by David Benjamin Gibson, my grandfather, but never sent. There is no writing on the back. This was the tallest building in Memphis.

This was sent to John Wiley Gibson, my great-grandfather and  husband of Nancy Caroline Morehead Gibson by my grandfather.

I love the advertising promises on the back--says it all!

The following card is of the back of the above postcard sent from Heber Springs, Arkansas by my grandfather while on a short trip to partake of the hot springs.

He reports that everything taste something like rotten eggs. Yuk!

Below is a photographic portrait of the David Benjamin Gibson, Sr. family prior to 1953. 

Park Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee

Pa lived in Memphis until his death in 1961. He is buried in the Gibson family plot at Elmwood Cemetery.

Seated on the floor, left to right: 

Fran Gibson (Carpenter,) John Gibson, Jr.

Seated on the sofa, left to right:

Rebecca Gibson (Schott), Uncle Petey (Granny's brother, Peter Fowler from Chattanooga), Granny (Frances Fowler Gibson), Pa (my grandfather, David Benjamin Gibson, Sr), holding Bert Gibson, and Gibby (David Benjamin III) Gibson sitting on the arm.

Back row, left to right:

My father George Gibson, Sr., my brother George Gibson, Jr., my mother Mary Frances Gilbert Gibson, Dorothy Esch Gibson, John Gibson, Sr., Helen Young Gibson, David Benjamin Gibson, Jr.

Missing are Diane Gibson, my cousin and me. We were not born, yet.