Come over and see me sometime.....

Ernest Leslie Downing (grandmother's brother); Lillian Downing (sister in law) Cyril Downing (brother)
Here are some fun pictures of my grandmother and her friends and relatives in the early 1930's. I love the 'flapper' fashions of the time. What a fun era that must of been to experience! "A flapper" refers to a young woman who defied the times. The style of the day called for short, bobbed hair, short skirts, fancy hats, and clunky shoes. Women no longer wore corsets. After the end of W.W. I and the passage of the right to vote, women enjoyed more liberties. Many even began smoking, drinking, and driving cars! Oh my!
Lillian Downing; friend; Cecil Downing (grandmother's brother);Isabel Downing (grandmother's sister)

Prohibition was a desperate, conservative response to the excesses of the Roaring Twenties. My great-grandmother Mary Margaret solved the problem of Prohibition by having a whiskey distillery in her apartment in Chelsea. At the time, my grandmother's brother Cecil was a merchant marine and fisherman. My Norwegian grandfather Hjalmar was a seaman too. After many a fishing trip, Cecil would invite 'the guys' to his mother's house. That's how my grandparents met.
Grandmother Gwen and Lillian Downing