Two “official” photographs courtesy of the Marine Corps.

The picture above has been stamped on the back with the following:
Official Marine Corps Photo
By
Reproduction & Photographic Section
3D Marine Division, FMF
Camp Joseph H. Pendleton
Oceanside, California

This is followed by two lines with blanks that have not been filled in:
Job No. 3D- _____________
Date __________________

No idea who the fellow on the right is, or exactly what the show-and-tell session is about.

This has a stamp on the back with a job number and the date written in:

Job Order No. 3B-3014
Date: Nov 16 1951

No date or other information on this picture. Presumably this is from his first enlistment, at the tail end of WWII.

This is one of my favorite pictures of me and Dad, despite the fact that I’m almost cut off.  It was taken on the front porch of the house I grew up in, on Homewood Ave in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Pittsburgh PA.

He looks happy, I think. I look just like the snarky 11-year old that I was.

I’m not sure why Janet isn’t in this picture, which is otherwise a pretty apt family portrait.  It’s a bit damaged, but I like it anyway.

I’m seven and apparently aware that I look insufferably cute in that bonnet; John is thirteen and surly.

Mother is wearing her wig. Not sure if she’d had another surgery that year or if some other treatment (radiation?) was preventing her hair from growing back.

Dad mainly looks like he’s squinting into the sun.

On the back is handwritten: Deer Valley 1968.

Silly but fun double-exposure shot. The picture is dated 1953, so Dad was roughly 29 years old.

On the back of the picture is handwritten:
Hallowe’en 1953
Folley’s

Great action shot of Dad playing badminton. I’m not sure of the year, but it was probably sometime around 1974, when he was Pittsburgh Men’s Champion.

The back of the photo says:
Newman-Schmidt Studio’s Inc
Pittsburgh, PA
(numbers I can’t make out)
90589C 1
Roll #1 (hand-written)

You have to love the facial expressions in this picture: Dad proud, Janet serious, John pouting (or mock-pouting?), and me kind of contorted.

The fine print on the back says Kodacolor Print, Made by Kodak, June 65R.

This photograph was torn out of a newspaper, presumably by my grandmother Helen Collins. Most of the caption is missing although it may refer to Santa.

This is sometime soon after their father had gone missing in somewhat mysterious circumstances. When Dad told me the story, he said that his father (who we always referred to as Jack Senior, although technically Uncle Jack is not a Junior) had been seen wading into the Niagara River and was presumed to have been swept over the falls. However, there is also speculation that he may have run away with another woman. All very tragic for those immediately involved at the time, but a fascinating story 80-some years later for those of us with no emotional investment.

In the picture, clearly Uncle Jack was old enough to understand that he was supposed to look sad (and indeed may well have been as sad as he appears), while Dad is just posing with the phone as instructed and looks rather incongruously cheerful.

This picture is not dated. I guess he’s in his late teens or early 20’s.

The front of the matting  frame says “Portraits by Hill’s Pittsburgh” and gives the photography studio’s name and address as:
Hill’s Studio
214 Highland Ave
E. E. Pittsburgh, PA

My sister held a small (unofficial) memorial service at her church. It was the first time in a very long time that the Fitzpatrick siblings were all together.