When We Were Very Young

There were still five of us in the spring of 1936 -- ages 9, 8, 6, 5, and 2 -- before the scarlet fever struck three of the stair-steps sisters in November and Raudolyn died less than a week short of her seventh birthday.

Despite the Great Depression's hard times, our parents had a studio portrait made of us that spring, which was later, some time after Raudolyn's death, enlarged, tinted, and framed. This hung on the living room wall until Hurricane Celia inundated it with water in 1970.

Also hanging on the living room wall. in a formal grouping with the studio portrait, were two tinted portraits of Raudolyn.

One of them was a detail of the studio portrait and the other an enlarged, tinted picture from a 1935 black-and-white snapshot of Raudolyn sitting by the oleander bush in the side yard, posed with one of our mother's summer zinnias in her hand.