July 28, 2005
Photo Album
Over her lifetime, Susan collected hundreds--perhaps thousands--of photos of our family. One of her long term goals was to place them all in albums. Alas, her illness thwarted her plans. In hopes of fulfilling a portion of her dreams for this project, I plan to post here some of the more prominent photos from her collection spanning the 4 decades of our married life. We will begin with this, her picture immediately after our marriage in Webster Groves, Mo. I've always been struck by her face in this pose, because it said to me: "I got what I planned."
As poor graduate students we honeymooned at the exotic "Rough River State Park" in Kentucky. On one of our hikes I captured Susan acting like a cub bear climbing a tree:
Our first home together was at 5727 Elwood St. in the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pa. The irony was that Elwood was also the name of Susan's father. This picture captures a number issues in our first year of marriage. First the blue walls in the upper right. Susan hated them, but I insisted that they stay. The green sofa in the background was our first piece of furniture. The little dachshund was named Alexander and Susan won it (by beating me and my partner Jim Logsdon) at a game of Mille Borne. He turned out to be an untrainable dog, and when he grew up he ate the green sofa, after which even Susan decided he had to go. Note Susan's outfit which she made herself, as she did almost all her clothes in those days.
Finally, in July 1967 I completed the requirements for the physics PhD at CMU, and accepted a job at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ. I just missed the 1967 graduation, so here we are in June, 1968 when I received the degree officially.
Leaving Elwood Street in '67 we moved to the brand new Chatham Hill apartments in Chatham, NJ. Susan loved this one-bedroom apartment with its modern kitchen. Here she is standing in her kitchen showing off the little black dress that she made herself. Of all the places we lived after this, I truly believed she liked this one best, with the exception of the house on Ash Circle. I think the fact that it had only one bathroom to clean, and the walls were light, gave it a special appeal. Those were happy days full of new adventures and high prospects for the future.
After 2 years at Chatham Hill, we bought our first house at One Leddell Road in Mendham, NJ. A year later, Susan became pregnant with David, and he was born on Sept. 19, 1970. Here's my favorite photo of the two of them.
Two and a half years later brother Mark was born. Here David inspects the new arrival, after which he comments, "Let's give him to the garbage men." (They're good friends now....)
A year and a half later, brother Peter was born, and our five-person family was complete.
