This is actually a very small photo in its decorative dark green cardboard frame of the second most important influence on my life after my mother, my grandmother. Our grandmother. The embossed dark grey folders below close over the pair of vertical photos of Fern at 16.
This is Fern in 1912 when she was 17.
In this 1911 group photograph--she's 16--as identified by her, left to right, the back row has Maude Carlisle, Fern Peters, Effa Lesher; the front row, Amberette Flaherty, Maggie Carlisle, and Maggie Conard.
Gram's writing at the bottom identifies herself at the left and Lidia Hoops at the right but not the middle girl. It's June 1911. At the top of the moon in the background are "Don't care if I never get back" (taken from "Take Me Out to the Ball Game") and "If Mother could only 'C' me now." On the back she had written, as a 16-year-old apparently, "The girl holding my hand is Leo's sweetheart. We (Leo and I) are going to get some taken Sun. The other girl is a friend. Fern"
She has written on the back what I put below.
Wasn't she beautiful? Such perfect symmetrical features: eyebrows arched just right, not too thick and not too thin; beautiful big eyes with dark eyelashes; a short dainty nose, and a rosebud mouth. Beautiful complexion. She was very pretty. Was she teaching yet when she was 16-17? And how old was she when she married Grandpa? I could probably figure out these details for myself, but I know that you know, and I like the way you write, so will just let you tell me her story.
P.S. She could rival Ehle for beauty, if you ask me. I think Ehle is beautiful, and the BBC's production of Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite things to watch, too, but I bet if you took most of her makeup off and put her next to Grandma, it'd be hard to say which one was prettier.
I, too, saw the 1995 production when it was first on TV, and have watched it multiple times since. The thing about Ehle's portrayal of Elizabeth Bennet is how expressive her face was. Perhaps that was due to editing or directing, but she could show disdain or amusement or disbelief just by the slightest lift of her eyebrows. And Firth was wonderful as Mr. Darcy. Anything else that I've seen either one of them in has been a let-down, as I suppose I keep hoping to see those characters again, and, of course, they aren't playing those characters.
Anyway, Grandma could have been a beauty queen if she'd had the desire. Perfectly beautiful.