What is your Story? Do you have a family story started? Why not colorize the pictures and put some life into it!

Should I colorize old pictures?

When Mr. Turner from Turner Broadcasting, started colorizing old black and whites it caused quite a controversy.  Some people thought it was denigrating an era where the black and white pictures said something about our history.  There was an innocence of the day and those black and white movies took you back to a time when people respected their elders, honored their parents, and country.  Add color and it's just another move towards the riotous 60s, hippies, drugs, sex and rock and roll - the nightmares of all parents.  Their children were out of control.  Yet, sitting in front of a two-hour movie in black and white, and they were instantly transported back to a gentler time when families sat around the radio and listened to stories and plays together.  

I feel a little differently about colorization and was very excited when My Heritage, one of Family Search's partners developed a way for people to colorize old pictures for free.  For me, it was a time when the stories that I was told while looking at black and white pictures were a source of wonder.  I had to imagine the color because my whole life was colorized!  When they told me that Aunt Isabel had dark red hair like my Mother and Father, I looked at my mother's henna rinse (to keep the gray away) and tried to imagine my Aunt, now with gray hair, born in 1914 with beautiful red hair.  Now, I know!

Here is the same story I put into my journal, and will insert it into my memories now that I colorized the pictures then after the story, I'll show you the black and whites at the bottom.

The place to colorize your pictures is on:

https://www.myheritage.com/incolor

Aunt Isabel Concannon was beautiful.  So beautiful in fact, she won a beauty contest in 1930 at 15 years old.   She was also a champion swimmer as she took 2^nd place in an all-city

meet. Isabella Mae Concannon was born on 28^th of July 1914 to William and Mabel Concannon.  She was the 3rd child of 13 born to William and Mabel.

here she is 2nd from the left

Mabel Harris Concannon in 1911

Wm Matthew Concannon in 1911

  Our grandfather, William Matthew Concannon, son of Michael Joseph Concannon and Mary Agnes Lally from the isle of Inishboffin, Galway, 

Ireland, was born in Los Angeles.  He was the first of the Concannon children born in the United States.  He was not only a champion swimmer, but an exhibition diver at the pool where Isabel and her siblings grew up.  She had taught herself to play the piano by ear. That was her talent and it got her the trophy from the Pageant.  Of course, you know how blarney goes.  We were told the contest was Miss Arizona which is a pretty cool feat.  But, I'm a pretty good genealogist and was unable to corroborate that fact. So we will leave it as a "pageant". She lived in Tucson. Later in life  , married to my Uncle Don Root, she was in a bar, a good catholic girl that she was, playing the piano, and two men got into a fight over her. She stood up to break them apart and got hit on the head. This happened the year that I was born in 1953. The accident resulted in a hematoma on the brain and ensuing brain surgery to remove it. The stroke was a major one but crippled her rather than take her life.  It was in the speech part of her brain and brain surgery was not too advanced or delicate.

    Something went wrong and something was touched or bruised during the removal resulting in the condition of seriously impaired speech. I loved her. She would always bring me things that she embroidered and always wanted to wear or sit on anything purple.

When my mother let me redecorate my bedroom, She said, "No you don't really want purple, right?" I chose big purple roses for my white 4 poster bed. Purple walls and purple roses for the drapes. I knew she would love it and she did!

She would stroke the flowers and say over and over,

"Mother, mother, mother." She knew my mother didn't want purple. But it gave me incredible joy that it made her so happy. It soon became my favorite color. All my life, when she would visit or I would visit her home, we were inseparable. She could only say Mother, Mike (my dad), Don, her husband's name, and “you”.  Sometimes she would point to me and say it over and over again with a smile.  She could still remember how to play Easter Parade over and over again on our piano. I would play a song I had learned and she would play one...Easter Parade.

Isabel  worked at a drugstore in Tucson.  She married someone right out of high school.  His name was Frank Charles Fitch.  She had two children.  A boy and a girl.  In 1951, the records show that She was married to my Uncle Don when Frank died of a Heart attack in San  Francisco. 

There is no mention of the children and my family, my mother, 95 years in 2020, states that she never knew that Isabel had children.  She had met and married my father in 1946.  Isabel was living with my parents for a while and had a problem with drinking.  Now putting the puzzle together, she said, “Maybe something happened which caused her to drink.  Tragically, alcoholism and a weak heart ended her life when I was a young mother. She got to meet my first two children, Virginia and Brian. I didn't care.

 My daughter wrote a song about her. She also taught herself at four years old to play by ear.   My daughter’s favorite color is also purple.  As her fingers tickle the ivory, I feel Aunt Isabel lives on in her.

Who will you write about today?

This photo is of the younger children as the older ones were already grown.  The baby in the picture where Isabel was about 5 and James was a baby. Now this shows baby Jimmy as the oldest of the younger children.  From left to right - Mike (My father), Johnny, Ginny, Jimmy about 10 and baby Joe.

https://myhr.tg/1Zbaxtld

Left to right - Mike (my dad) High school - possibly college Football star, Jimmy, baby Joe in front and Johnny on the right

later...my dad's story.

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