Category: Friday Funny

Friday Funny: That Boy is a Girl

Posted on by spuddled

On 24 January 1908, the Sisseton (South Dakota) Weekly Standard carried the following blurb on page 5:

On 13 January 1908, Wellington David Wilson’s (my second great-grandfather) second wife Bessie (Olson) Wilson had given birth in Roberts, South Dakota, to her third child, a daughter named Gladys Leona Wilson. As W. D. noted above, the newspaper the previous week had erroneously referenced a “big 10 pound boy” born to the couple, and he chose to clarify things with humor.

Fourteen years later Gladys was confirmed, and some years later married Odin Alf Olson. The two had at least one child, Gloria Dawn Olson (born 22 July 1930 in Watertown, South Dakota). Gladys passed away in 1965 and her husband in 1968; Gloria married Ralph Brostrom in 1993 and died in 2011 in Fairfax, Virginia.

Friday Funny – Sisters in Law

Posted on by agnette

I love this picture. It was taken in June 2009 on one of our annual visits to see family in Fairbury, Illinois. We didn’t know it then, but it would also be our last visit with Aunt Alice. Along with trying to convince Dottie to drink cinnamon schnapps (I think), Aunt Alice also regaled us with stories of when they were young wives vacationing together. In particular I remember one story of a rainy day when both families were on vacation in Michigan. All the kids were outside playing in the rain, and Alice and Dottie decided they would bake a German chocolate cake. They could hardly wait for the cake to finish baking before they tasted it. And tasted a little bit more. And then more. And suddenly to their horror, the entire cake was gone except for a tiny sliver! Hastily they devoured the final sliver, then washed and put away the pan. Between them, the two sisters-in-law had eaten the entire thing. Hopefully the smell of the rain hid the smell of the missing German chocolate cake…

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Friday Funny – Grandma’s Pants

Posted on by agnette

 

Velma Swing Wearing Roy’s Pants

This photo is one of many shared with me by Grandma Hoffmann. Luckily I had Grandma’s word for it that this was actually a picture of her, wearing her older brother, Roy’s, pants. I don’t know if there was a particular occasion for this cross-dressing, or if Grandma regularly wore Uncle Roy’s hand-me-downs, but it’s pretty entertaining. I also like the pump there in the corner.

This picture always reminds me of a funny story Grandma once told during a family interview.  Eventually I’ll finish transcribing the interview, but this particular anecdote involves Grandma, storytelling, and a slop bucket. When about three years old, Grandma was talking to her family and walking backward while doing so. She stumbled up against a big bucket in the kitchen where they put scraps and dish water for the hogs, and poor Grandma sat right down in the bucket.  “And everybody laughed at me.  It wasn’t a bit funny.” Though relaying the story all those years later, Grandma was able to laugh.

It reminds me of another NOT FUNNY experience someone else had that involved falling into water accidentally. And also being dressed in someone else’s clothes….