Seven Generations in Just Two Pictures

Many people like to take pictures that have multiple generations in one picture. Because women tend to outlive men, these are most often pictures of four generations of women. So, I thought it would be interesting to post two such pictures – one of all women, and the other of all men, but both of which have four generations represented.

This first picture was taken about 1918 when my Aunt Dot was about two years old, the four generations represented here are as follows:

·        The white-haired lady in the center is my great-great-grandmother, Lois Irene Rogers [adopted and renamed Mary Lois Drake] Northrop. She was born on 5 Apr 1851 in Lee, Massachusetts. (I’ve told her story before here.) The story of her name change was passed along by her to the other women in this picture which is why we know about her name change. She married Lawrence Northrop in 1870 in New Milford, CT. Lawrence had died on 28 Aug 1918, shortly before this picture was taken, but Mary Lois lived a long life and outlived this picture by another 15 years, finally dying at the age of 82 on 30 May 1933 in New Milford.

·        The woman in the upper right is my great-grandmother, Caroline Canfield [Northrop] Levy. She was born on 5 Apr 1872, also in Lee, Massachusetts. Her Canfield middle name is from her paternal grandmother who was from the Canfield family of New Milford. In 1893 she married Maurice Levy, the son of Ashkenazi Jewish parents who had come to this country in 1851 and moved to New Milford from Brooklyn, NY which is where Maurice had been born. Maurice died at the young age of 40 in 1910, but Caroline outlived this picture by 17 years, dying on 18 Sep 1935 in New Milford.

·        The woman in the upper left is my grandmother, Vera Estelle [Levy] Russell. She was born on 2 Jun 1895 in Brooklyn, NY, but following the death of her father, her mother moved the family back to New Milford, CT. I’ve told some of her story before as well here. She married Erskine Russell in 1914 when both were 19. The couple moved to Bridgeport where their children were born. She died in a mental institution on 7 Jul 1963, and my grandfather died on 23 Jan 1970.

·        The young child in the foreground sitting on her great-grandmother’s lap is my Aunt Dorothy (known as Dot) Russell. She was born on 13 Aug 1916 in Bridgeport and is about 2 years old in this picture. She married Robert Hill of Waterbury in 1938. She lived until 7 Jan 1991.

[4 generations of woman]

 

It seems fitting to follow up these four generations of women with four generations of men. The below picture was taken in the early summer of 2005 and was the only opportunity to have this group together. My grandson, Aryon, had been born the previous fall, and my father was suffering from dementia and passed away only a little more than a year after this picture was taken.

[4 generations of men]

 

From right to left are the following:

·        Vernon Harold Russell, my father. He was born on 20 Nov 1920 in Bridgeport, two years after the prior picture was taken, and he was the younger brother of my Aunt Dorothy. He is 85 in this picture, suffering from dementia, and would pass away on 5 Sep 2006 at our family home in Wolcott. My mother would outlive him by about 6 years.

·        Alan Harold Russell, myself. I was born in 1948 at St. Mary’s hospital in Waterbury, but grew up in Wolcott. I went to college in Michigan where I met my wife and we married when I completed grad school in 1971. We lived in Connecticut for four years, then moved to Pennsylvania where we still reside.

·        Christopher Alan Russell, our oldest (and only) son. He was born in 1979 in Pennsylvania, went to college in Indiana where he met his wife and they married in 2000. At the time of this picture, they were living in New Jersey, then they later moved to Florida where they still reside.

·        Aryon Christopher Russell, our first grandson. He was born in 2004.

I think it’s exciting to have pictures like this that between them span seven generations of one family and with over 150 years between the birth of the oldest and youngest individuals representing each of these generations.