Photo Pest: Seven Generations of Ostrander Family Photos

Photos are sequenced according to the oldest generation present.

Earliest Photographed Generation

George Blunt and Egie W. Kipp, parents of Mary L.

The Blunts

George Blunt with daughter Mary L.

George Blunt with granddaughter Mary F. (Easter 1943)

Mr. Blunt with grandson Douglas Whitney & Mary L.

Chatham, NY

Mary's Parents (2nd generation)

As much time as I spent with my grandparents, Earl and Mary Ostrander, I know very little about their family trees. Doug, my only first cousin on my mother's side, was more interested in the Blunt and Ostrander genealogies, but we never discussed it.

Mary L. Blunt

Mary was born on February 13, 1888. I wish I knew where!

Mary L., upper left

Dirt Street

Mary treasured birthday greetings from her parents.

Mary loved dogs, especially fox terriers.

Mary did not work outside the home for the duration of her marriage. Both her daughters enjoyed careers.

White Plains, NY (Easter 1943)

Peach Lake, NY (August 1943)

Wicker Chair

Sweeping (Daytona Beach, FL)

Earl C. Ostrander

Earl was born in Ghent, NY on May 17, 1889. He worked nearly 50 years for the New York Central Railroad, beginning as a fireman in 1906.

Earl, left, & colleague

Look closely and you can see Earl in the engineer's compartment.

Earl & Locomotive

When Earl retired from New York Central in 1955, he drove a locomotive for the Harlem Division with lifetime membership in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.

New Retiree (Croton Falls, NY, 1955)

Front Porch (Daytona Beach, March 1959)

Earl loved two things besides Mary: fishing and drinking.

Earl, kneeling, far left (Daytona Beach)

El Paso (Christmas 1969)

Earl & Mary L.

I called them Opa & Oma, something I picked up in Germany as a young child.

Washington, DC

Earl and Mary bought a home on General Heath Avenue in North White Plains where they raised three children: Albert, Madeline and Mary.

Where's Albert? Earl with Mary L., center, Madeline, left, & Mary (ca 1927)

Family Picnic: Mary F., Madeline, Doug Whitney, Mary L & Earl (early 1930s)

The Two Marys (early 1930s)

Father and Daughter

Unsmiling Mother & Daughters (1943)

Earl & Robert Whitney, Madeline's husband, right

Mary & grandson, Doug Whitney (Lake Mahopac, NY, 1942)

Mary & grandson, Doug Whitney (1943)

Mary & Earl with their grandson

Earl & Mary took the train from White Plains to El Paso during Mary's pregnancy.

Carlsbad Caverns, NM (ca 1953)

Pregnant (El Paso, TX, 1953)

These photos must have been taken when Ken and Mary were on their way to Munich. I was their second grandson.

Mary & Jeff

Earl and I never had much to say to one another.

Earl & Jeff (Pleasantville, NY, October 1954)

I can't explain why they're sitting on beach chairs indoors. I still have the framed photo of Mary in the background.

Here's the home they bought on Schulte Avenue in Daytona Beach after Earl retired.

April 1958

No doubt Ken took this photo of our black Karmann Ghia in the driveway.

Three Generations (April 1958)

I fell for Florida living at an early age. All it took was the lizards who changed from green to brown in the back yard.

Washing Up (late 1950s)

After we settled in El Paso, Earl and Mary spent the holidays with us in Milagro Hills. Our dry back yard could not have been more different than theirs.

Mary L., Earl & Mary F. (Christmas 1958)

Earl and Mary dressed to the nines and went dancing on the pier every Saturday night. Their retirement reminded me of summering in the Pines.

March 1959

Parrot Paradise (Ormond Beach, 1960)

Mary F. caught some weird skin ailment from her avian encounter.

The Two Marys (Ormond Beach, 1960)

1962

I'm pretty sure this was taken during an unforgettable Easter visit. Oma and Opa gave me a baby chick which I refused to leave behind when we drove back to El Paso. Somewhere along the way, Ken & Mary convinced me it would be happier if we dropped it off on a farm. That memory primed me for a professional role I assumed as an "undercover bunny inspector" years later at the ASPCA. New York State had a law that forbade pet shops from selling chicks & bunnies in quantities less than six to discourage post-holiday abandonment of live gifts. The ASPCA enforced it with a media blitz which featured me in a two-page photo spread in the New York Post, surely one of the highlights of my career.

1965

Molly Blakely was one of the many new friends Earl & Mary made in retirement. Although I heard her name often, I don't recall meeting her.

Turkey Dinner at Molly's

Looks like she lived in a trailer park. Not that there's anything wrong with that!

Molly's Front Yard (April 1968)

In the late '60s, Mary and her mother decided she and Earl could no longer manage a house on their own. They sold their beloved house, now torn down, and moved into the Bellair apartments. Mary's siblings thought she had been premature, creating family tensions.

June 1968

Charlie, Earl, Mary L, Ken & Mary F. (1968)

They liked it even less when Mary moved their parents to El Paso where she could look after them, although Albert visited once with Lillian. Sad to say, they made absolutely no impression on me although I did go to see Lillian in the nursing home where she spent her final years. She was, as Ken would have said, "sharp as a tack!"

Earl, Albert, Lillian & Mary L.
(9912 Collette Street, 1969)

Albert in the Driver's Seat (1969)

Oma loved Charlie, who hammed it up in all the family photos.

Living Room (ca 1968)

Den, Christmas 1968

In retrospect, I wish that I had spent more time with Oma & Oma when I had the chance but hanging out with your grandparents when you're a teenager with a dune buggy isn't a high priority.

Ruidoso, NM, 1969

Ken brought those sandals I'm wearing back from Saigon. They're reconstituted from rubber tires.

1970

I staged this photo to illustrate the theme of the 1971 high school yearbook that I edited:

"old friends," inspired by the Simon & Garfunkel song. Oma knitted that afghan. I still use it, more than 50 years later.

"Sharing a park bench quietly" (1970)

Living Room, Matching Blouses (February 1971)

Earl's 82nd Birthday (May 17, 1971)

Backyard, 1971

Dining Room, Mary L.'s 85th Birthday
(February 13, 1973)

Earl & Mary both died in El Paso.

Even though they had purchased burial plots in Daytona Beach, they decided they wanted to be laid to rest in Old Chatham, New York. I attended Earl's burial with Sis & Robbie in July 1974 and visited the cemetery in the early 1990s, after Mary joined Earl in 1977.

Albert, Madeline & Mary F. (3rd generation)

It's hard to explain why someone mutilated this lovely family portrait with a ballpoint pen, but Albert remains unscathed.

Madeline, Albert & Mary F.

Madeline & Albert

Mary F., Madeline, unidentified child & Albert

Albert & Lillian

Albert followed in Earl's footsteps. He worked for the railroad and married a small, birdlike woman named Lillian. They never had children. It looks as if these first three photos were taken during a picnic not long after World War II when Mary F. introduced Ken to her parents and older brother.

Albert & Lillian

Albert & Ken

Mary F. & Lillian

Old Chatham, NY (July 1950)

Madeline Egie Ostrander

Mom's older sister always was known as "Sis." She married Robert Whitney at a young age. Sis was my favorite aunt, especially after Mary died because she knew stories about Mom.

Robbie worked most of his life for the A&P in White Plains. His brother Russell had a daughter who took me to see Mothra in an MG. Robbie eventually bought a Thunderbird convertible.

Sis & Robbie soon had a son, Doug, who bonded with their boarder, Ken, after he returned to White Plains from World War II service in France. Although Ken and Mary already knew another, I don't believe they became romantically involved until Ken began living with Sis and Robbie.

Mary & Nephew Doug (late 1930s)

The Whitney Family (Lake Mahopac, 1942)

Mary Frances Ostrander

Mary married Kenneth Bruce Hon in December 1946. Surprisingly, for a much-photographed couple, no wedding portraits exist. Jeffrey Bruce, their only child (that's me), was born in September 1953 in El Paso, Texas where Ken was stationed after he and Mary returned from Japan.

New Mother (El Paso, TX, 1953)

Jeff, Mary & Ken (Norfolk, VA, 1958)

This may be the last photograph ever taken of me with Mary. Ken was participating in the "Billy the Kid 100," an off-road motorcycle race, using the Honda 100cc he and Mary had given me two years earlier, just before I went to college.

Mary & Jeff (Las Cruces, NM, 1973)

More Ken & Mary

Family Visits

Once Doug grew up and enlisted in the Navy, Sis spent the next three decades working for "the Wallaces" in the subscription department at Reader's Digest, then the nation's most popular magazine. During my tenure at the New York Public Library, the DeWitt Wallace Foundation funded the Periodicals Room named after him. By then Sis had retired but we both got a kick out of our family connection.

Sis & Robbie (Norfolk, 1958)

When I arrived on the scene, Doug had a family of his own and was going to college on the GI Bill.

Doug & Robbie (Norfolk, 1958)

We met for the first time when we lived briefly in the Washington, DC area after returning from Munich. Doug eventually ascended the corporate ladder at Ma Bell before taking early retirement not long after federal antitrust law broke up the nation's sole telephone company.

Bobbie Ann, Doug, Jeff, Robbie, Sis & granddaughter Cathy (Norfolk, VA)

Jeff and the Frowning Sisters (Washington, DC)

Sis & Robbie had a small boat named the MEOW (Madeline Egie Ostrander Whitney).

Sis, Bobbie Ann & Doug

Mary and I stayed with Sis & Robbie in 1962 en route to join Ken in Orleans, France. They took us on the boat. We docked somewhere along the Hudson where Robbie made a delicious meal. I'd never had corn wrapped in aluminum foil before. Robbie also introduced me to blue cheese and told me that it had been invented by French miners who left their lunch in a cave.

1962

Sis and Mary didn't speak for years after that visit, although they did make-up by the time I started college at Columbia. Other than Ken, they were the only family members to attend my graduation.

Graduation Day (1975)

Sis and Robbie also retired around that time, buying a home on the Jersey shore, where I occasionally visited them on my motorcycle. Robbie made a mean whiskey sour.

Robbie & Sis

Robbie, Sis & Jeff (Manhawkin, NJ, May 1982)

Sis & Robbie eventually moved to the Chesapeake Bay area, to be closer to Doug and their grandchildren.

Father & Son (Reedville, VA, 1986)

Sis and her grandchildren: Jeffrey Nelson, Emily & Meghan Whitney, & Whitney Nelson
(Reedville, March 1993)

Sis, Meghan, Emily & Robbie

Sis & Robbie (early 1990s)

Brain cancer killed Sis in 1994. Robbie continued living on his own, nearly blind, until his death in 2010. Whenever I visited, he would listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. We never let politics come between us.

Robbie (1998)

Doug & Robbie (Chesapeake Bay, 2002)

Doug & Jeff (4th generation)

Doug Whitney

Doug was born in White Plains, New York. I'm guessing Sis originally sent Earl and Mary these mostly undated photos, which then passed into our hands after Mary L. died in 1978.

The back of this photo indicates that Robbie hand painted it.

This has got to be the most unexpected photo in the Ostrander chronology!

June 1949

Pleasantville, NY, 1952

Doug married Bobbie Ann, a southern gal he met while stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. They eventually divorced after having two children, Cathy & Scott.

Doug & Bobbie Ann (December 1956)

Doug, Bobbie Ann & Cathy (Norfolk, 1958)

Doug remarried Anne (top left), who had a daughter of her own, Janice (white sweater). As this extended family photo indicates, he became quite the patriarch!

Bottom Row: Whitney Nelson, Emily & Meghan Whitney, & Jeff Nelson
2nd Row: Cathy, Janice, & Scott
3rd Row: Jeff Nelson, unknown, Kay Whitney
Top Row: Anne & Doug
(Thanksgiving 1992)

Here he is at granddaughter Whitney's high school graduation. Time flies!

2007

Doug and Anne eventually left Reedville for Roanoke, VA. I visited Doug there shortly after Anne's death to pay my respects. I owed him at least that: when Ken died in 1992, Doug flew to El Paso for the funeral, the only relative from Ken's first marriage to do so. As a result, we became much closer than ever before.

So close in fact that I told him I was gay, face-to-face, something I'd never done with any relative. He wasn't surprised but he couldn't have been more supportive. When we said goodbye, I teased him with breaking news: "New York State just legalized gay marriage so I have to get home to dance in the streets." We had a good laugh over that.

Doug eventually lost his mind to Lewy body dementia and had to be institutionalized.

Scott & Doug (Richmond, 2016)

Jeffrey Hon

Alas, I never married, although I did live with David for several years shortly after meeting him in Central Park in 1978. We remained very close until AIDS claimed him in early 1993. It's very hard losing your dog, your father and your ex-boyfriend in a six-month period, let me tell you.

David, Smokey & Jeff (New York City, 1984)

Like Doug many years before my birth, I dressed up in drag in the Pines, a part of my life that I had kept completely hidden from Ostrander family members until I came out to him. He said the descriptions of my summers there reminded him of the time he and his family spent at Nag's Head, NC. I will never forget our conversation or the happiness that it brought me at the age of 58. Why did I wait so long to be myself? It gave us twice as much to talk about.

Hevita (ca 1992)

Cathy, my first cousin once removed, reached out to let me know it was time to say goodbye to Doug in 2016. Despite his illness, Doug asked if I was still going to the Pines! Afterwards, I had lunch with Cathy and Scott, her brother. We hadn't seen each other in almost 25 years.

First Cousins Once Removed: Jeff, Cathy & Scott
(Richmond, VA, 2016)

The Whitneys and Nelsons (5th generation)

I'm cheating a bit in this section by including pictures of yours truly but only a few years separate me from Cathy and Scott, my two first cousins, once removed. They have spent their lives in the Richmond area.

Cathy & Jeff (Norfolk, 1958)

Scott & Cathy (Richmond, VA, early 1960s)

Cathy, who climbed the ranks of Reynolds Metals Company married Jeff Nelson. They have two children, Jeff and Whitney. Otis elevators employed Jeff.

Jeff N., Scott, Jeff H. & Cathy (Reedville, March 1993)

Scott, who worked in sales married Kay, who made beautiful home flags in addition to working a full-time job. They have two daughters, Meghan & Emily both of whom graduated from Virginia Tech and now are married.