Today would be the birthday of (Lucille) Edna Mulder Zuidweg, my wonderful grandmother, born April 17, 1912. We lost her on September 21, 2000.
In honor of Grandma, I’ll share more from her high school graduation scrapbook, which has quite a few goodies in it. I wrote about it before in the post Who Put the Ring Stain on the Scrapbook? Today I’d like to share one page of the scrapbook.
This page is my favorite because I learn more about my grandmother here. In the upper left is a photo of my grandparents, which means that they were dating by the point she glued that photo in the book. Aren’t they cute? When and where did they meet?
In the upper middle is a photo of Grandma’s best friend Blanche Stauffer, Class Valedictorian. Grandma was Class Historian and her older sister Dorothy was Salutatorian. The newspaper clipping on the upper right explains all that.
The congratulations note by Elsa looks treasured. At the bottom left is a newspaper clipping which is from April 1920:
Miss Edna Mulder celebrated her eighth birthday anniversary with a party Saturday. Twenty little people were present.
In the bottom right corner is another clipping. This one is also from 1920:
The first of the spring flowers again comes to our desk through the thoughtful kindness of little Edna Mulder. Flowers while we live to enjoy them are far sweeter than those at death for does not some one tell us that “Flowers on the casket can cast no fragrance backward over life’s rugged way.”
One more scrapbook treat is the “entertainment” for Grandma’s 8th grade graduation, which took place in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on June 12, 1925:
The Family Kalamazoo 
Such special memories and so nice to have this scrapbook. Happy birthday to your Grandma xxx
Thank you much, Jackie! The scrapbook is such a lovely keepsake of my special grandmother.
Wonderful treasures in scrapbooks…you’re so lucky to have these! Happy Birthday to your grandmother!
Sheila, thank you so much. I miss her very much!
A delightful posting. I too am sending your grandmother a “Happy birthday!” I like the way you combine genealogy, artifacts, and imagination.
Something we talk about in Reminiscence Writing, from time to time, is that fact that one’s descendants will eventually want to know one’s life story.
I can’t imagine not wanting to know the stories of my ancestors. Best wishes to your writers, Wilma! And thank you for being such a faithful reader!
What a great memento to have and treasure!
Thank you–it is! I wish everyone had something like this to treasure from a loved one.
It’s fun how newspapers used to contain stories about children’s birthday parties, etc.
There are times I would love to live in such a small community, one that cherishes all the little events of the inhabitants’ lives.
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These scrap book pages are very vivid. Have they been stored in a special way? I am amazed that even the news clippings remain very neat and intact.
EmilyAnn, I had no idea this scrapbook even existed. I don’t know how they kept it, but I can’t believe my grandmother did anything special for the storage. It’s pretty amazing.
[…] one I posted last week. Last week was the anniversary of my grandmother’s birthday and I posted a page from her high school graduation scrapbook. Then I posted a photo my father had taken in the […]
A wonderful record! I, too, am amazed that it’s so pristine – but she clearly had the wonderful idea to preserve her history so that the family could enjoy it later. I am trying to preserve the family history… but rather forget about my own!
[…] the girls graduated high school together. You can read about their graduation here and here and here. In this post, Grandma, Dorothy, and Vena are shown as children with their parents and one brother […]
[…] As a high school student at Caledonia High School in Michigan in the 1920s, my grandmother, Lucille Edna Mulder, was a good student. As I have written about before, she was Class Historian at graduation–and kept a beautiful graduation scrapbook. […]
[…] You can read more about the graduation of these young ladies in Who Put the Ring Stain on the Scrapbook? and in Scrapbook Treats. […]
[…] Scrapbook Treats […]