This picture of my mom and dad was probably taken before they married in August of 1940.
I was born in November, 1941. This picture was either taken in the spring or summer of 1942. A note on the back, written by my aunt who gave it to me, says, “Your dad was proud of his car.”
My sister Carol Ann was born in December of 1942. I believe this picture was taken in 1943.
This is the photo of my father in his army uniform that I put under my pillow and slept with while he was away during the war. He penciled a note on the back of the picture that told me to look at this picture when I missed him.
This note from my father reminds me that he was a very different person before his time in the military.
This picture of Carol Ann and me was one of the many pictures my mother took with her Brownie camera and sent to my dad while he was away during the war. I am wearing the dress with the little birdhouse pocket that my mother made for me that I described in the book.
Me as a child.
This partial picture of our old “house on the hill” is the only one, to my knowledge, ever captured on film. The old underground cellar is just to the side of the house. Our chickens were “free range,” and the daffodils and peonies in the front yard were planted by the previous occupants long before our arrival. We lived here during my grade school years, 1947 to 1954, when my father’s violence became the constant backdrop of our lives.
My First Communion day, May 1, 1949, was a very significant day for me. Here I am with my sisters, Carol Ann and two-year-old Janice Faye.
This is the first family photo that I remember, taken when I was 17 and living on my own. I had just told my family that I was joining the Sisters of St. Mary in August.
February 11, 1966: My parents walk me down the aisle to the altar in the convent chapel where I will make my final vows. To those entering the Order, this is comparable to our wedding day, and I was beyond happiness.
From 1976 to 1981, I was Secretary General of the Congregation. This photo was taken in my office in 1980, a year after my father’s death and a year before I left for graduate school.
My graduation from the University of Tennessee in Memphis in June, 1983, was a joyous day, especially because my mom was there to witness and share the event. I can still feel the energy of the moment captured by this picture. It was one of the few times Mom fully expressed her happy feelings for me.
This is one of the few pictures I have with Mom before she left us in June, 2002. I am telling her stories about the little pet canary that she had given me some months before.