My Favorite Photos - October 2022

During October, my favorite photos centered around birds, flowers, spending time with my younger daughter at college, and spending time with my sister doing genealogical "field trips." 

In early October, I saw a white-throated sparrow. I like the little yellow spot on its forehead.

 

The cardinals are now coming back to the feeders. During the fall and winter, they spend more time near our home and at the feeders. They remind me of my parents who were equally overjoyed when a cardinal - or a pair - would show up at their home. 

A new type of bird showed up at our farm - a red-breasted nuthatch. Normally, we see the white-breasted nuthatches. So, this is a pleasant surprise. 

The flowers have been blooming well into October which is unusual. This one surprised me when I looked closer at it after downloading it to my laptop: the center of the flower is heart-shaped! 

On warm days during October, the sparrows love playing in the birdbath.

By the middle of the month, the bird feeders were getting lots of "customers." It's always a bit bittersweet when the goldfinches' vibrant yellow feathers change to a tannish-gray color.

 

After spending a weekend at home, I brought Olivia back to college. She is on the video/tech team and enjoys it. She took me around the auditorium. This is one of the catwalks. I found out that she is tethered when she moves across the wooden pieces to her right. What isn't quite visible in the photo is that there is a gap between each piece. She needs to re-tether herself as she moves along them to adjust the lights. 

This is another catwalk that has a lot of stage lights. Below are the first six rows of the auditorium. 

As we stood on the catwalk, this was the view down. She also works at the soundboard which is the table in the middle section. 

On the third weekend, my sister and I went to a cemetery in Minneapolis where our grandparents on our mom's side are buried. We cleaned the graves and got the grass back from them. We didn't have a lot of water. So, after the next rain, the gravestones should be a lot brighter. 

 

At the same cemetery, we visited our great-grandparents on my maternal father's side. I had never been to this marker or the graves before, so this was something new. We saw that there were three additional gravestones - two belonging to their unmarried adult children and one belonging to a married adult child. Again we cleaned off each of the gravestones which was a big task. I don't think anyone in the family had been there in decades to do that. 

While we were in the area, we stopped by the church where our parents got married in 1964. At that time, all of the portraits were in black and white. Needless to say, the church was beautiful with its stained-glass windows. We were even lucky enough to be able to see a quinceanera. The young lady looked beautiful in her pink gown with the bouquets of pink flowers lining the aisle.

Around that neighborhood, which was considered a "Tier 2" area during the riots after George Floyd's death, there are a lot of murals. This one caught my eye.

This one did too...for a more humorous reason.

Our last stop of the day was at the home where my grandma and grandpa (on my mom's side) and my mom lived starting in 1942. Our grandpa died in 1951, my mom got married and moved out to her first home with our dad in 1964, and our grandma died in 1982. So, the home was in the family for 40 years. 

We were simply going to take some photos outside of the home. After we did that and were in the car, we noticed a woman peering out behind the door. I went back and introduced myself, and told her the purpose of taking photos. 

To make a long story short, she invited us in and we were able to see the home 40 years after we last saw it! A highlight was seeing the beautiful stained glass window still at the landing on the staircase. It was such a gift that the current homeowner gave us by letting us see the home. What was so touching was the care they are taking to preserve and restore the home. All the original woodwork - since 1904 - is there. 

Our last stop of the day was seeing a duplex that my grandparents and mom lived in from 1938-1942. My mom would have been 8-12 years old at the time. I'm not sure if they lived on the first or second floor. 

Interestingly, we have passed by this home hundreds (probably thousands) of times. It wasn't until my sister and I started doing genealogical research that we were able to get the addresses of some of the homes where our ancestors lived. 

After that, I became pretty sick and have been dealing on and off with laryngitis, fever, a respiratory infection, persistent cough, and sinus issues. Lots of children at the school where I work are sick now - over 5% with the flu alone (which they need to report to the Minnesota Department of Health). So, there are no more photos from the third week of October through the end of the month. 

My Oldest Pictures

Recently, my sister and I have been working on our family tree. We have been going through old photo albums and loose items that belonged to my parents, like yearbooks, newspaper articles, and loose photos. 

We are so thankful when the old photos are labeled with the name(s) of the people in them as well as a date. Even better is when the location is noted also. Sometimes we have no idea who the people are in the photos which is discouraging. 

The following ones are some of the oldest ones we found. I've included some "newer" old photos as well. I've labeled who is in the picture, when and where the photo was taken, and - if possible - a couple of sentences for each one. 

Standing on the train car on the back left is my great grandfather, John Krug. It looks like they were taking a break from working on the railroad. This was taken in about 1900 when the Brownie camera (an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera) became more readily available.

This is my paternal grandma, Olive Rinkenberger, with my dad, Don. This would have been taken during his first year of life, in 1932. 

This is a four-generation picture taken in 1932 of:

- my dad, Don Rinkenberger (the baby), 

- his dad/my grandpa, Burl Rinkenberger (standing on the right), 

- my dad's grandpa/my great-grandpa, Samuel Rinkenberger (standing on the left), and 

- my dad's great-grandpa/my great-great-grandpa, Peter Rinkenberger (seated...holding my dad). 

My dad had a close and loving relationship with his siblings. Here they are on one of their farms in about 1938. My dad is on the right. His sister, Marilyn Rinkenberger, is in the middle; and his brother, Richard Rinkenberger, is on the left in the cowboy costume.

My dad was active in 4-H when he was growing up. One of his projects was an Angus cow. It is shown here with my dad in the Summer of 1944. I remember him telling me how much he loved that cow...how gentle it was. He was devastated at the end of the county fair when his beloved Angus had to be slaughtered. Still to this day, the auction process is part of the 4-H experience for market animals. I just couldn't do it. It would be so sad. My dad never showed another cow or market animal through 4-H.

In October 1963, my maternal grandma, my mom, and dad were standing outside somewhere. When looking at this photo for the first time last month, I wasn't sure if that was my grandma since she appears taller than my mom in this photo. (She wasn't - she was shorter than my mom.) My sister went back on some old photos of my grandma and she had that same pose - with her arms folded over her stomach - in other photos. She also had heels on which made her appear taller than my mom. When this photo was taken, my parents were not yet married. 

On June 13, 1964, my parents got married in Minneapolis, Minnesota. From left to right are: my maternal grandma (Clara Grande), mom (Dorothy Rinkenberger), dad (Don Rinkenberger), paternal grandma (Olive Rinkenberger), and paternal grandpa (Burl Rinkenberger). 

My parents got married at Incarnation Church in Minneapolis. It was near where my mom and grandma lived. I remember walking to the church when I would stay overnight at my grandma's home. I don't recall it having a dome like that over the altar. I need to go back and see this church. Going to it now will probably bring back memories of earlier years in the 1960s and1970s.

Who could forget the 1970s and the polyester clothes of that decade? This is taken in about 1976 of my family including my parents (Don and Dorothy Rinkenberger), my sister (Mary), my brother (Jim), and me (Ann) rocking that pink and white polyester outfit.

And...to wrap things up...here's a picture of me from 1967.

I am wearing a dress that my mom sewed. How do I know that? My mom loved to use rick-rack (the trim) on clothing. She put it on the neckline, the sleeves, and at the bottom of the dress. She sewed clothes for us well into junior high. At that time, she was making knit shirts for all of us kids. After that, I used babysitting money to buy clothes and accessories for myself since my parents had a limited income.

This was a glimpse into the hundreds of old photos I've been scanning recently. My sister has boxes of scrapbooks and photos that belonged to my parents, so I'll have hundreds more photos that I'll be scanning each month for the rest of the year. It is worth it, though, to have these photos in digital form just in case something happens to them or they continue to deteriorate.