This photo of my family in the mid-1950’s, is the only formal portrait my parents ever had taken. Most of our family photos were taken by my Dad with his 35mm Canon camera and he developed the early ones in black and white himself in a makeshift darkroom. Later he took a lot of color slides which he showed in the living room from time to time with a projector. Around the time Mom went to Europe by herself, she got a little Minolta and began to fill albums with snapshots. Since I inherited all of the family archives, I’ve been sorting through them and picking out the best photos to save.

In writing about my parents, it turned out that there was a lot to say about Mom’s early life but later her story blended in with Dad’s, with some about her career at Longy. For Dad, there are some details about his early life and a lot more about his career with GE. And, later, in their retirement years, there were many photo ops and family visits in Marblehead and beyond.

So, here is what I have:

• My mother: Margaret E. (Brown) Rohde
• My father: Erwin C. Rohde
• My brother: Carl F. Rohde