Brothers on the Southern Iowa farm, August 13, 2011

The Brownie camera by Kodak was a great new invention. My parents put away the box camera and started using that little Brownie. It had a small viewfinder that you looked down into and then you pressed that plastic slide button downward. If you weren't careful the clicking of the button caused the camera to flip up and down.

The photos came back in a little packet all connected together at the top. It was designed so you could tear them out of the book but fortunately for me they were all still together.

Southern Iowa during the summer of 1956 and mom has lined up her boys again.  Two of us brought our cats and one grabbed the family dog.

Pictured from left are Rex Thomas Burgus b. 1943,  Ronald James Burgus b. 1941, Dwight Lee Burgus b. 1947, d. 2008, and Larry Dean Burgus, b. 1950.

The old house in the background is one of the T-shaped farmhouses with no insulation but it did  have electricity.  Running water, undrinkable, was in the house when we moved into the house in the winter of 1953.  In 1959 my dad built a modern ranch house on the same site.

Larry and Dwight standing next to Dwight's bike. I was 6 and in the first grade. My hand me down shirt looks a little large but I probably grew into it.  Behind us are the two locust trees with very sharp thorns.  To the left is a cistern where water was pumped into it from a pond a half mile south of there.  It was filled with water and we pumped it into the house for general use but water for drinking came from a well nearby.  The date on this one photo which must have been the top photo, indicates when it was developed so it could be early spring as there are no leaves on the trees.  Maybe it is fall but there are no leaves on the ground.

This is taken when it was cold as you can see the coats on the two young ones in front. I really don't remember that car as my dad bought a newer 1953 Ford and it was blue.

 Divide and conquer so to speak as we separate the youngest out for their photo.  This series of photos is the only bunch of photos that I have that gives me a visual record of the house.  The front porch on the other side of the house had square columns on it to hold up the roof.  I was always impressed with those square Greek influenced posts. I didn't fix the tear as it makes the photo have a little personality.

My Aunt Ruby was the sweetest woman.  She had lost her husband, Frank Henderson, before I was born.  She was one of my dad's older sisters and she liked to keep track of  him and his family.  She and I are standing next to the woodpile that will be burned in the winter. I really think this has to be in the fall as in the spring that pile would have been all used up and the bark would be in my sandpile that sat right next to it.

Having the two brothers come to Iowa for a short visit back from their California and Arizona homes made me a little nostalgic.  They left Iowa to live in the warmer climates in their late twenties.  Both of them love to come back in the summer and admire our weather.  They do not come back to survive our winters.

The last home where my parents lived in town is soon to be sold.   The neighbor boy on a nearby farm, who was my older bothers age,  had two children.  His two, brother and sister and their spouses, have bought the old farm, each owning half of it and they are trying to bring it back as a farm.  The previous owners allowed all agricultural land to grow up into weeds and trees.  It was 240 acres of land with 180 acres of farm land and the rest was timber.  The past is hard to find there when you return to visit as the roads through the property are overgrown and the barn has collapsed. 

Thanks for stopping by to visit my family branch.  Check out the others who are contributing blogs honoring Sepia Saturday by clicking here.