This past week I accompanied my parents to Fort Wayne, Indiana so that my mother could have a reunion with her siblings. Like most reunions we spent a lot of time talking about people who weren’t there. People who either I never met or who i remember their passing. And it got me to thinking about Fran.

Here we have Edith, Shirley and Fran Frantz. I don’t know when the photo was taken. I took a picture of it when we were going thru photos after Dick had died. Fran has shared memories of the family farm in her book MORE ACORNS FROM THE LITTLE OAK. Frank and Edith lived on a farm 2 miles north of Alamota in Western Kansas. There the Frantz’s had no electricity or indoor plumbing.  Instead, there were carbide lights which hung from the ceiling and oil lamps on the tables.

The Frantz’s had no indoor plumbing of any kind.  Their bathroom was an outhouse with three holes, two adult sized ones and a lower, smaller child-sized hole.  They bathed in a big tub in the kitchen by heating water and pouring it in the bathtub.  During the summer Frank would rig up an outside shower which was connected to the water tank on top of the tankhouse.  No electricity also meant no refrigerator.  Frank would bring home 50 to 75 pounds of ice to place in the icebox about every other day.  Their meat was stored in the locker in Dighton as it would not freeze in the icebox.  

I just love this photograph. I assume that it was taken at the house on the Frantz Farm. Perhaps it was a Sunday, and all of them were dressed up in their Sunday Best. Edith’s gown is simple but it’s so classic that it could be worn today. I love her shoes that cross several times. Shirley also has Stylish pumps and what appears to be simple dress. And Fran in her jumper with bobby socks and Mary Jane style shoes is just adorable. And the hems, while having different heel heights, their hems are all pretty even. From their shoes my eye is next drawn to their hands which are also placed the same. And then up to their faces. With Fran’s smiling expression to Shirley’s simple smile to Edith who looks like she could give you a world of knowledge with just one conversation. All beauties in their own right.

“I think the hardest thing for a mother is to make it possible for a child to be independent and at the same time let the child know how much you love her, how much you want to take care of her, and yet how truly essential it is for her to fly on her own.” -MADELEINE ALBRIGHT.

I found the above quote by Madeline Albright and thought it applied to Edith. She wanted more for her daughters and raised them to be independent, professional, thinking women who were ahead of their times. Thank you Edith for raising Shirley and Fran to fly on their own.