Yesterday I looked thoughtfully at a couple of newly discovered photos of my family members in the 1950s.

One is now enlarged and framed, on the piano in our library – the one of mother in her overalls and “do” rag. She’s headed for the barn with the one-gallon metal milk can we filled each day for the refrigerator. Milk at its finest, fresh from the cow and chilled, with an inch of cream floating on the top.

I wonder who took the photo. I was always the kid with the camera, but I do not remember. I imagine the photo being taken early in the day, though it could just as well have been evening. Mother looks to be genuinely enjoying the moment, though eager to get on with her chores. Perhaps she really did have some good days. I wonder now if the joy I’ve deprived her of in my memory all these years might be exaggerated, clouded by my own melancholy as a child. Mother looks young and beautiful and hippy-like in her farm outfit, though she most assuredly didn’t see herself that way.

I should like to time travel, spending an hour with her at that age. What questions would I ask? And would she react openly or clam up? I would want to ask if she is happy with her life, of course, and her answer would be indirect.

“Why shouldn’t I be happy? I have four healthy kids. What more could I ask?” That is the answer she would want me to be satisfied with. She was not one to bear her soul, though her demeanor overall suggested discontentment as long as I can remember. She would say she had to get back to work. “This interview is over,” and she would continue her brisk walk to the barn. I would be left wondering once again how she really feels, harboring my own interpretation of a long-suffering woman who smiled only long enough for the shutter to click.

(The second photo will be the focus of my next blog entry.)