29 Cool Old Family Photos

My grandma being a meme innovator in 1940s Oklahoma

My grandfather during WWII.

My grandma in 1968, who did everything from changing tires to overseeing all the details of my grandfather’s racing career. In 1971, he won Rookie of the Year in the NASCAR Winston Cup Grand National Series, in its first year under Winston’s sponsorship and it wouldn’t have been possible without her.

My Great-Grandparents, apparently about to drop the hottest new album of 1978.

My mom would always talk about how she was an editor for Tiger Beat magazine when she was a teenager in the 1960s. She would brag about spending time with the Stones and the Beatles. We always thought she was telling tall tales. I uncovered this pic while cleaning out her house last week.

My dad 49 years ago, waking up after getting hit in the head with a croquet mallet to find out he was unconscious through the whole moon landing.

My grandpa while serving in the US Air Force. Taken in Edmonton, Alberta on Jasper Ave on August 11th, 1944.

My dad in 1969 in the Bronx, NY, speaking out against the Vietnam War. He became an anthropologist and archeologist, was taken hostage on 2 separate digs, saw a man trampled by water buffalo, crawled into a leopard den for ancient pottery, and so much more. He was my very own Indiana Jones.

My dad got in trouble for skipping school because the local paper printed this picture of him in 1984.

In 1973, we had a home birth. Friends were celebrating on the porch when a girl with a camera came up and asked what the celebration was for. We told her and she asked if she could take a photo. 2 weeks later, she came back with this. The little boy is me and the bundle is my minutes old baby sister.

This is a photo of my great aunt and her dad in the 1950s. He couldn’t wait for his tree to grow before using his hammock.

My dad as a zookeeper in 1992. He was the only one at the time who could call the rhinos by name and they would come running like dogs. They enjoy a scratch behind the ear like dogs do.

My great grandmother 1917. Age 15.

My great-grandmother and her youngest son, who is now 98 years old. This is him when he returned from Dunkirk, after going missing for 6 weeks. My great-grandmother thought she would never see him again until one day, she was standing outside of her door and saw him walking down the street, back home.

My Dad in 1980 about to go into the Upside Down.

Today my parents celebrate 50 years of marriage. Not bad for a New Zealand girl meeting a Texan in an Australian airport.

My grandpa in the 50s a few years after he fled China by swimming across shark-infested waters to Hong Kong.

Me, 1988 USS Midway, on a talent show crossing the equator of the Indian Ocean. Singing a song about a girl with the clap. I won the contest.

We joked for years that my grandfather had a girlfriend in Japan. I found this in his desk. Japan, 1955.

Father’s Day about 31 years ago. Then and now…

My grandmother and great-grandmother in the late 1920s in China. Since she was the only child, they kept her hair short like a boy, so that she would be respected as the future head of the household. She also told me she refused to take this picture until they bribed her with grapes.

My mom doesn’t like sushi and was caught throwing it away at age 4-5, around 1965-1966, in Japan.

I carry this old Pic in my wallet of my dad and me on my first backpacking trip circa 1996.

My mother in 1973, at 3 years old, waiting to talk to my grandfather who was deployed in Guinea-Bissau, fighting the Portuguese colonial war.

My Dad, who is now 90 – Interior Alaska, early 1950’s.

Grandpa won a car in a poker match while stationed in West Germany – 1950.

My mother as Captain of the Alligator Alley Tour, 1982.

My grandpa days before being drafted into the Winter War against the Soviets. Still alive and well! Finland, 1939.

My photographer father set the timer perfectly for his proposal to my mother in 1979.