Today, along with sharing the above photo, I wanted to let you all in on a little known secret: Gus and Alfrieda were Perrisian socialites.  Well, members of high society in Perris anyway.  Through a great newspaper hosting service called Genealogybank I found no less than 70 articles in the society pages documenting their and their daughters’ social lives. Dan is mentioned around three times, but Blanche and Frieda were mentioned often.

The frequent updates on dinner parties, illnesses, car trips, birthdays, and Gus’s business remind me of the volume of Facebook-style sharing that we think of as a modern convention. Over the next few weeks I’ll start posting pdf’s of the pages extracted from various newspapers, mostly the Riverside Daily Press, and I will highlight the location of the relevant blurbs.  Let me know when you’ve had enough, there is plenty, ranging from 1907 through 1949.

Today in honor of the holidays I’ll start with one of the later mentions, when a 10 year old Clarence Almquist gave a Christmas recitation: Clarence recites at sunday school.  I wonder what kind of bribery his mother had to do to get him to do that?  Or was this pre-rapscallion Clarence?

Getting back to the picture above, it is from a scanned negative I have.  It has been cut at some point in the past, hence the odd outline.  I’m guessing it to be from around 1915-1927, based on their apparent age relative to their wedding photo taken in 1907.  I’m wondering if it could be something like a 10th or 20th wedding anniversary photo?

I hope you all are having a great holiday season!