Susan Rogers - extended family
       
Before birth control

This is perhaps the most interesting of all our photos because it tells about a woman’s life at the time it was taken.  There were three more children still to come.  The expression on the mother’s face speaks volumes about life before birth control.  

Sarah, the mother in the photo, is an older sister of my maternal grandmother, Fanny.  Sarah came to America first, via Scotland, where she found work in a cigarette factory in Glasgow to earn passage for the rest of the journey.  Morris was working there too, and that’s how they happened to meet and marry. 

Sadly, once in America, it turned out that Morris did not have much of a work ethic, yet the children kept coming.  By the time of the arrival of their first son, in the photo, Sarah had clearly seen the writing on the wall, so to speak.  In her time, Sarah had few, if any, options.  

My mother was close with these cousins throughout her life.  On summer vacations, while my brother and I were growing up, we traveled far and wide to visit them and their own families. 

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Anne (left) and Rae with their mother, Sarah, who holds the first of their three little brothers, Mike, Lou and Joe.