NOTE: We’ve promoted this post to its own page. Please use the new location to post your comments.
Well all be… a box of family photos was found at the Burgeron place the other day. We’re not sure who’s who in these snapshots. There were no captions on the back, only the name Louridge on the box. Anybody recognize a face, location or event? And I’m sure there must be more family photos out there. How about posting them to the site so the rest of us can take a look?
There was another box of much older photos, again without any identifiers. If we can’t figure out who these people are, at the very least we should add a caption or two. Help us out here. The comments section is a great place to leave your input.
(B&W photos found on Flickr courtesy of the US National Library of Congress)
The Burgeron Family 
Hello, there. I do know one of those photos you’ve got posted above. I believe the photo of the four schoolboys (second row from bottom, on the right) is a picture of my uncle, Comet Bergeron. He had that picture on his wall as long as I can remember but I always thought it was just one of those cool “vintage” pictures he picked up from one of the antique stores in town. We live in Glendale, Arizona which has got dozens of antique store; a famous destination for antiquing. Anyway, I’m going to investigate this a little on my end and follow up with another comment but I’m pretty sure that’s Uncle Comet.
By the way, I found your site really as an odd coincidence. I was on a phone call and the wires crossed or something — you know when you’re on the phone and you hear another conversation but they can’t hear you? Anyway, these two ladies were talking about a book one of them was reading and said something like Gretta spelled “bovine” correctly — very odd. In fact, it was so odd and curious that it was really bugging me so I had to Google it — I Googled “Gretta bovine” and did discover that the book they were chatting about was “Delivery” by Diana Prusik (see link below) but then I started to look at the other “hits” from my search and found your website; specifically Don’s post, writing about his move to Bovine and about his ex-wife. I would have left it at that if it wasn’t for the dream I had.
I had this really interesting dream last week — actually, I have “interesting” dreams just about every week. The dream was very Biblical/mythical ; so I initially tried to interpret it metaphorically. In my dream I was kind of in a panic, running around grabbing animals, stealing dogs leashed to park benches, climbing up trees and pulling baby birds out of nests, fishing seahorses out of backyard swimming pools and just getting more anxious with the wind blowing hard and the rain getting heavy and then I’m just running alongside this stampede of animals and then it got kind of dark but really hot and oppressive like I was crammed in a tight space with lots of people and all of these animals… and then like a movie, I suddenly “cut” to the outside and there’s the world covered in water and high, foaming ocean waves and this single-wide trailer is bobbing up and down in the ocean swells. And then — boom! — the roof skylight flips open and I climb out with all of these animals and we’re just surfing this single-wide, wondering when/if all this water is going to subside. Crazy dream…
But what’s even more crazy is the mobile home on your website is exactly the same one in my dream and the same shade of green! I was in a state of shock — the blood just left my body and my head was feeling compressed… I just started looking around your site and found your post from earlier today with the photos and the one with my Uncle Comet. I really don’t know what this all means but I resolved there and then to investigate. I’ve got some notions of what to do next but I at least wanted to reach out to you and let you know. Seriously, I was getting seahorses out of the swimming pool.
More later.
West Bergeron
Glendale, Arizona
Link to “Delivery” by Diana Prusik
http://books.google.com/books?id=PVyCfFQ07jgC&pg=PT237&lpg=PT237&dq=Gretta+bovine&source=bl&ots=gJemqr6-yl&sig=rWBW7ngDfuYXeumY0Ii7bthiu0M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dwFzU_2ePIKTyASDpYKABg&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAQ
LikeLike
I was googling my mother’s family name “Bergen” and found this website because I seemed to have made a typo: I type Bergeron instead of Bergen.
I saw these old photos and the word “Holland” on the picture of the woman towing a canal boat caught my attention immediately.
Now it happens to be known in the Bergen-family that after some strong discussions, long time ago, part of the Bergen-family left Holland and went to America. The story goes that they were so angry with the rest of the family, that they changed their last name into something different. Maybe they changed it to Bergeron.
My grandfather used to tell old stories about the wife of his second cousin’s grandfather.
“That woman was as strong as a horse”, he used to say. The whole family had heard the story millions of times, the story about how strong aunty Cornelia was.
So this picture of the woman towing a canal boat, could just be a picture of aunty Cornelia at work. Though it’s a complete mystery to me how this picture ended up in your home.
LikeLike
Well RockyLou, I can tell you a tale about the lady on the white horse riding in the Suffragette parade, though truly I don’t know much about your Great Great Aunt Elsie as she was disowned for those high falutin’ ideas she picked up when the family sent her back east to be finished. “A crime,” your Great Great Pawpaw said that those easterners ruined her with all those ideas about equality and woman’s rights. Elsie was Pawpaw’s favourite sister. He said she was never right in her head after that trip and their pa sent her packing right back to Boston. Old Mawmaw, when she was sipping her cordial used to mutter about Lady Godiva and the shame of it all and how was she supposed to hold her head up in the community when everyone knew Elsie had “given away the milk for free.” Never got to meet Elsie in person, though Pawpaw used to say she was a firecracker and a real go-getter!(though never in Mawmaw’s hearing, as MawMaw was a bit of a firecracker too! Her wooden spoon was deadly!) I think some of the pictures show Elsie’s friends in the suffragette movement and if I’m not mistaken she’s in that parade of graduates getting her degree. She married up I believe but we lost contact with that side of the family after Pawpaw died.
Bossie
LikeLike