{"id":518,"date":"2012-08-27T22:19:32","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T05:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blackenedroots.com\/blog\/?p=518"},"modified":"2013-03-29T23:28:41","modified_gmt":"2013-03-30T06:28:41","slug":"gertrude-scott-through-the-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackenedroots.com\/blog\/gertrude-scott-through-the-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Gertrude Scott through the years"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Gertrude Scott Askew, my great grandmother, was a hard-working, unpretentious woman who was pressed into assuming adult responsibilities before her time, due to the premature death of her mother a few months before Gert’s thirteenth birthday.<\/p>\n

Gert’s appearance has always been a little puzzling to me. Until this week, I hadn’t seen any photos of Gert before 1941, and in every photo I had seen of her (all dated 1941\u20131980), she appeared remarkably similar. Here’s a woman who took what life gave her, without complaint, and her portraits over the years hint at the silent toll that her selflessness took on her.<\/p>\n

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Gertie, ca. 1900<\/p><\/div>\n

Gertie was the oldest of the children\u2014all daughters\u2014of Frank Scott and his wife Margret “Maggie” McAllister. Her sister Maggie Scott was 2 years younger than Gert, Cassie was 7 years younger than Gert, and Eva was 10 years younger than Gert.<\/p>\n

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Gertie, ca. 1912\u20131913<\/p><\/div>\n

I feel like I can see the heavy burdens she carries written all over her face.<\/p>\n

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Gert, Oakland, 1941<\/p><\/div>\n

The above photo is of Gert immediately after she and Clyde moved to Oakland from Minnesota in 1941.<\/p>\n

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Gert, Oakland, ca. 1943<\/p><\/div>\n

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Gert, Oakland(?), ca 1944\u20131945<\/p><\/div>\n

My first estimate was that the above photo showed Gert in her late 30s or early 40s. \u00a0Then I realized that Gert is wearing the same dress that she’s wearing in the photo that’s dated to 1945 (below). \u00a0I think her youthful appearance in this shot is simply a case of old-school photo[graph]shopping, as also indicated by the fact that this photo has been carefully hand-colored.<\/p>\n

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Gert, Oakland, 1945<\/p><\/div>\n

There’s that green paisley dress again.<\/p>\n

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Gert and Larry, ca. 1946-1947<\/p><\/div>\n

The baby she is holding was born in late July, 1946, so the photo above must date from late 1946 or early 1947.<\/p>\n

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Gert, San Leandro, May 1966<\/p><\/div>\n

Gert at her and Clyde’s 50th wedding anniversary in San Leandro, CA, on May 1, 1966.<\/p>\n

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Gert, July 1977<\/p><\/div>\n

The photo above shows Gert on her 80th birthday. \u00a0This is how I remember my great grandmother, with her frock and her cat-eye glasses. Never complaining, always quietly happy.<\/p>\n

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Gert, North Hollywood, January 1978<\/p><\/div>\n

Gert sporting her first-ever pants suit at her daughter Harriet’s house in North Hollywood, CA, January, 1978.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gertrude Scott Askew, my great grandmother, was a hard-working, unpretentious woman who was pressed into assuming adult responsibilities before her time, due to the premature death of her mother a few months before Gert’s thirteenth birthday. Gert’s appearance has always … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[26,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facial-identification","category-gertrude-scott-1897-1980"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackenedroots.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackenedroots.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackenedroots.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackenedroots.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackenedroots.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blackenedroots.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackenedroots.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackenedroots.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackenedroots.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}