Travel Tuesday - Mackinac Island, Michigan

Mackinac Island, Michigan was a vacation spot for my grandparents and father at least three summers. Dad had slides from 1950, 1952 and 1953. As an only child it was fortunate for Dad that one of his school friends from Chicago also spent summer vacations there with his family.

I don't know how long a vacation my grandfather took in the summers but I get the feeling that they had time to relax and recharge. Although I'm sure my grandfather had plenty to do at any time of year, he did work for universities for most of his career and probably had a good amount of time off in the summers.

"Approaching Mackinac Island"

Ferries to the Island

Coachman for the Grand Hotel

The Grand Hotel does live up to its name.

Mackinac Island City

Historic homes.

Fort Holmes

Pere Marquette

Judge

Construction of a bridge.

Lovers' Leap

Arch Rock

Sugar Loaf Rock

Travel Tuesday - Gloucester, Massachusetts

If my father's unlabeled and un-indexed slides are in chronological order, which I believe they are, then he visited Gloucester, Massachusetts in the summer of 1954, shortly after graduating from prep school at The Loomis School in Windsor, CT.

I had no idea where these photos were taken until I used a Google image search to help me identify this statue.

My search revealed that this is "Man at the Wheel", also known as The Gloucester Fisherman, in Gloucester, MA.  Once I had a location I looked for Catholic churches in Gloucester, MA to see if I could identify these photos of an alter and a church.

The church is Our Lady of Good Voyage, originally built in the 1890s (and rebuilt after a 1914 fire) to serve the Portuguese population in Gloucester, which was then the largest Portuguese population on the East Coast. When I first scanned these images the flags made me think of a regatta, but a second look told me it was probably some sort of religious festival. Well, now that I had a location, it was easy to find and answer. Dad's photos are most likely from the Blessing of the Fleet, an annual event in Gloucester and, at the time, a very big event.

You can see even more photos on the Good Morning Gloucester blog. There is a six part series of photos from 1948 that starts here and if you're really interested you can do a search for "Blessing of the Fleet" on the blog for even more photos.

Dad's photos sure are giving me the travel bug!

Travel Tuesday/Tombstone Tuesday - Calvin Coolidge Homestead

I'm still at my slide scanning project, planning to be finished scanning my dad's slides before the holidays start this fall. This weekend I scanned these slides which were taken at the Calvin Coolidge Homestead, I believe in the summer of 1953.

I never heard about this trip from Dad, so I have done a little bit of digging online to at least identify the buildings. The Homestead is actually a Homestead District in Plymouth Notch, VT that "preserves many of the historic buildings that Coolidge knew in his youth", according to the National Park Service website. These include his birthplace, boyhood home, his father's store, the homes of friends and relatives, their church and more. It sounds very interesting, something I'll have to add to my own bucket list.

When Dad visited, though, the Coolidge properties were still owned by John Coolidge, the President's youngest son. He donated the Coolidge home and furnishings to the state of Vermont in 1956.

Without this photo, I wouldn't have known where the others were taken.

 
Calvin Coolidge took the oath of office here in 1923 after the sudden death of President Harding (on this day in 1923 as it happens). The oath was administered by his father, a notary public.

It certainly appears that the family was still living here in 1953.

John Coolidge owned this store, his son, Calvin was born in the attached home.

Birthplace of Calvin Coolidge.

Calvin Coolidge lost his younger son, Calvin Jr., at the age of 16. He died from blood poisoning as the result of an infected blister. They are buried next to each other at Plymouth Notch Cemetery. Seven generations of Coolidges are buried there.