On the Road Again

It’s been interesting, matching up the material I’ve already received from my grandmother’s belongings after her passing in 1993 with the photographs I now have from my aunt’s collection.

I’ve mentioned my grandmother’s “Little Brown Book” in the past: what was meant to serve as an address book but doubled as a reminder list and catch-all for odds and ends gleaned from newspapers over the years.

With the discovery, in her book, of one tiny news clipping—presumably from an Erwin, Tennessee, newspaper, though there is no name or date to show this—I receive confirmation of the family’s residence in Baltimore, and their ultimate destination in Florida.

I can’t help thinking back to that sad note in my mother’s own life, when her family left her in Florida with her grandparents while the rest of them returned to Baltimore, with its proximity to the Johns Hopkins University hospital for consultation on some health conditions for my aunt. Though my mother loved her grandparents—she was particularly close to her own grandmother—experiencing this turn of events as a young child, she couldn’t help but feel left behind.

Perhaps it was two little girls of about the same age as I found in this family photo who were traveling from Baltimore to Tampa, by way of the Smoky Mountains and the little town of Erwin, Tennessee.

Mr. and Mrs. Jack Davis and two little daughters arrived Friday from their home in Baltimore, Md., to be the guests of the former’s mother, Mrs. Cassie Davis at her home on North Main street. From here they will go on to Florida, where they will visit Mrs. Jack Davis’ parents.